


Qo'noS Oxygen

by TallysGreatestFan



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Autistic Character, Bisexual Character, F/F, F/M, Gay Character, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-War, Social Criticism, Trauma, alien society, internalized ableism, scientists - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:22:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24769231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TallysGreatestFan/pseuds/TallysGreatestFan
Summary: None of them fits into the warrior ideal of Klingon society. All of them are still traumatized in their own way by the war against the humans and by how they are treated by their peers. But as seven red bursts appear at the sky and Chancellor L'Rell needs scientists to explore them comes their time to shine
Relationships: Katrina Cornwell/L'Rell, Original Male Klingon Character/Original Male Klingon Character
Kudos: 2





	1. The Harm of a Society Built on Honor in Specified Parameters

On Rihannsu planets, K’Felhyr had heard, they already called her generation the lost one, because of how merciless her government had used their youth as canon fodder in the war against Federation. Standing in front of the fume cupboard, crowded with four other people, feeling the sweat gather under her safety glasses and soak her lab coat, and feel the panic rise in her, slow but steady, she could understand all too well why.

She breathed in deeply, ignored the gross sensation of the sweat running down her forehead ridges into her eyebrows, and continued to pipet ammoniumacetate to her solution of exoctic aluminum she had to determine the amount of. Her left hand was constantly trembling. Normally, she preferred the side effect of the Lithium salt she was taking over what had happened as she hadn’t taken this medication yet. But right now, it only increased her nervousness, and she feared that if her other hand would start trembling to, she could spill some of the solution and the measurement could become imprecise, her calculations off, and her measured amount wrong, and then she wouldn’t get the kudos she needed, and had to repeat the experiment. She had not enough time. Already now she was behind, almost everybody else was farther with the experiment then her. 

But well, all of them were working in pairs, even the Rihannsu. Sharp pain went trough her heart. If Elasa was still with her, she wouldn’t have been behind. She wouldn’t have got that thing with the mass measurement wrong that had cost her so much time to repeat, because Elasa wouldn’t have been that stupid. How could she ever possibly hope to manage this without her?

Elasa is dead, she repeated in her mind, she is dead. You saw her die. Finally get that in your head, and continue with your experiment. You’re supposed to be a Klingon. Why do you dwell on the past like that? You are pathetic.

And as she did, watching the sediment of the reaction fall down in the glass like fat snowflakes, she could have sworn that everybody else in the lab could see just how pathetic, and worse, not knowing what she was doing she was.

The air was hot, thick, and too full with people. She could feel the gaze of the lab assistants on her back, feel the presence of the other students packed tightly beside her on the fume cupboard, and the ones beside. It cost her all her willpower to simply continue with her experiment.

And then, the two men in the fume cupboard on her right did something with their experiment, and sharp scent crept into her nose. It was nearly impossible to describe, unlike anything else. Metallic, maybe, but also rotten and wrong at the same time.

Tellurium compounds, the rational part of her said. Most of her however felt the same fear and despair creep up in her she had felt as she had smelled that the last time. Her throat was suddenly too tight. She tried to breath normally, in, out, in, out, but there was not enough air, just the sharp, disgusting Tellurium scent.

She said herself that she was in the lab, that she was safe. But it didn’t felt like it. All she felt was impending doom. She wanted to flee, but she had to do her experiment.

A part of her was vaguely aware that she was in the present, doing experiments at the university. She couldn’t really believe it. All her senses said that she was back on the battlefield, even if she could still see the labs surroundings around her.

Her heart pounded like mad, ready to flee or fight. She thought she had heard something behind her and turned, the tongs raised like a weapon, but it was nothing.

She had to make this stop. But she had to finish at least filtering her solution off, she had no time.

Her panic rose higher. She took the beaker and began pouring the solution trough the glass filter. Now both of her hands were trembling.

She thought she had heard something again, and flinched. Her back was so tense it hurt. Her breath came in flat, hectic pants.

Slowly, the solution poured through the filter, but it seemed unreal. As if this wasn’t her reality anymore. Her reality was this panic.

From far away, she heard the lab assistant bark at the men, this is exactly the reason why you have to keep the pane down, look at you, now the toxic fumes are everywhere and it fucking stinks, one Darsek for the lab register, but it was like from another dimension.

Finally, the solution was trough, and with hands shaking so strongly that the glass was clattering, K’Felhyr set it down and fled trough the laboratories door outside.

She never had wanted to weaponize her chemical knowledge. It was, in fact, one reason why she had chosen this subject, because at this time it was hardly ever used for creating weapons anymore.

“You have to use chemistry to fight. Give us something to fight with.”, the barking voice of her superior warrioress, as clear as if she would be standing beside her.

“I don’t want to.”, her own whimpering voice, she was not sure if from now or her thoughts from back then.

She had no choice.

K’Felhyr stumbled towards the womens restrooms, she had to concentrate to actually notice much of her surroundings.

The sharp, disgusting scent of the weapon Elasa and her had built. The confused look on the Vulcan soldiers faces, then their choking sounds and the panic that slowly crept over their ever-same indifferent expression as the toxic fumes reached them.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t wanted that.”, she whimpered.

She finally reached the restroom, found a stall and locked herself in. Details flashed into her mind. The way the eyes of her Vulcan victims bulged out as they made their last convulsions. The sounds. Her burning self hate, she should never had done this, she had to be stronger, she should have said no, the feeling to not be able to do anything.

Her stomach turned.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m…”, she mumbled, useless words, and felt tears stream down her face.

She should have done something. She should have been able to save them.

She forced herself to breath in deeply, tried to start one of the exercises the soul healers had taught her. List five visual things from her surroundings. Doorknob, white of the wall, her hand… Already then the train of thoughts got lost. Her surroundings seemed hardly real anyway. In truth, she was back on the battlefield. Couldn’t think clear from panic, and fear, the only coherent thought that there were to many Starfleet soldiers. Far to many. She felt – she didn’t remember, she truly felt – how her Mek’leth hit the firm surface of a soldiers body, then cut through it, into flesh, felt and smelled the blood splatter, but there was already another Vulcan, face and Starfleet regulation knife sprinkled with blood, and so unnaturally impassive.

“K’Felhyr!”, Elasas voice cut through the screams.

But K’Felhyr couldn’t turn, she was too busy escaping the soldiers blade. It grazed her upper arm, and pain shut trough her whole arm, but somehow she managed to not lose her weapon and keep fighting. A kick in her stomach, she couldn’t breathe anymore, but the Vulcan had become careless and came to close to her, and she thrusted her Mek’leth forward. With a dull, wet sound, it sunk into the soldiers abdomen, directly into where she had learned the kidneys were, so many veins that one bleed out almost immediately if one was hit there. The sensation of the hot green blood spilling all over her hand and arm and armor and the metallic scent was so much that she had to breath in deeply to not vomit on the point.

She turned to Elasa, in the middle of a fight with a female Vulcan soldier. K’Felhyr sprinted towards her, but already at the first step she saw another soldier raise her phaser gun.

“Elasa, watch out!”

For a moment, she thought the soldier would have somehow missed. Then Elasa sunk to the side and fell, without any attempt to catch herself, like a figurine somebody had dumped down. Only as K’Felhyr had almost reached her, she saw the thin trickles of blood quell down her nose and out of the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were numb.

“Elasa!”, K’Felhyr heard herself cry. She had no idea if on the battlefield or on the stall on the chemistry facilities, or maybe both. It didn’t matter anyway.

No, no, no, no. Breathe, focus on your exercises. White of the door…

Tears dropped on her arms.

“I sorry, Elasa. I’m so sorry. I should have saved you. I should have saved you.”, she couldn’t breathe from all the pain, “I should have saved you…”

She breathed in deeply again, tried to. Her hands were trembling like mad. White of the door, her own hands, the floor, the doorknob….

She saw Elasas face, the fear in her eyes.

Repeat the exercise again. Her trousers, white of the door, grey of the floor, the ugly drawing someone had painted on the wall, the words beside it… Now things she heard: Her own fast, shivering breath, the gurgling of the toilet in the stall beside her, the rustling of the ventilation, her own to loud heartbeat, footsteps outside…

She did the third part of it, counting down five sensations, and repeated the whole exercise as another picture came into her mind, then she counted down four visual details, things she heard, sensations, then three, then two, then one.

She didn’t knew how long it took her, and she had to restart it many times, but finally, she felt half way back into the reality, into the right time. Her body felt still shaky though, her thoughts were racing, and the guilt and fear was still there, too, but at least she didn’t had these blasts of her past anymore.

Shit, she had wasted so much time, she had to go immediately back into the laboratory.

As soon as she opened the laboratory door, an comilitone approached her: “Where have you been? The lab assistants already started asking questions.”

K’Felhyr breathed in sharply to fight the rising panic back down. She would work this out. She would simply go back to her fume cupboard and finish the experiment…

“K’Felhyr!”, the lab assistant hissed. She had no choice, she had to go to him.

“Where have you been the past hour?” So it had been a full hour. How could she answer that without revealing how weak she was? Now, Warriors Curse was nothing that made one weak or limited ones honor, but as a real chemist, as a real Klingon, she should have been able to focus more on her studies. No, she couldn’t answer without revealing herself.

The lab assistant simply kept talking as she didn’t answer: ,,With this approach, you will never manage to finish this rotation.”

Never manage to finish this rotation. Fear crept up in her. What would she do if she didn’t managed this? No, she couldn’t even think at this, she simply had to finish this. But how?

A real Klingon would have fought back against that, being stared at so presumptuously. Instead, she could just stand there, and her body felt strangely to large, as if her real self would be so much smaller.

Finally, the lab assistant looked away, and K’Felhyr was free to finally leave for her fume cupboard.

She worked as fast as she could, but she had lost too much time. And she couldn’t concentrate for the fear creeping into all her thoughts.

It became later and later, closer and closer to 1800 o’clock, when the lab shift was over. But she was not finished. Not by far. She had to be faster.

The clock switched past 1800. She was still not finished. She heard the lab assistants sign, saw the other students leave and tried not to pay attention to that, only to her experiment.

  1. “One Darsek for the lab register!”, snarled the lab assistant. K’Felhyr tried to keep working.
  2. She was progressing, but not fast enough. Dread crept up in her. “Now be a bit faster, we finally want to have quitting time!”



After that, the lab assistants expressed their displeasure in loud signs and muttered complains constantly, and it became even harder to concentrate on her experiment.

Finally, she was done, but she still had to clean her equipment.

As everything was cleaned and locked away in her shelf, the lab assistant mumbled: “Finally… That makes three Darsek then!”

K’Felhyr pulled the money out of her pocked, gave it to them, and then left the lab as fast as she could.

The chemistry faculty had its very own scent that surrounded her immediately as she left the corridor with the labs. It smelled slightly musty and stuffy and dry, just as it had smelled back then as she was still here with Elasa.

She went down the stairs to the lockers, and tried not to notice the scent too much, but it was just so poignant. Standing in front of her locker, she pulled the lab coat off and hung it inside, her lab gloves and safety goggles in its pockets.

And the whole time she couldn’t stop thinking about how horrible her experiment had went. Why had she even thought she could be intelligent enough to become a chemist? She was too weak, again. But what else could she possibly do? She was no material for a warrior either.

She left the faculty, and just as hot, but at least fresh air caressed her face. She noticed it only for a second, then she was back in painful thoughts.

Please this wasn’t the start of a depressive episode, she didn’t need that right now of all time.

She vaguely noticed that there were students standing and sitting on the short wall in front of the engineering faculty, but she only really saw them as one of them was waving at her.

Runner was really not hard to notice with his bright red bound top and the dark blue cloth trousers, making his umber brown skin shine. That he was slim, but quite tall, just as his companion beside him, also helped. She wondered if he was aware of this, or if he just couldn’t help but get attention no matter if he wanted or not.

Rashanur beside him blurred much more into the general look of everybody else around him; his rough-weaven black tank top and the broad cloth belt playing around his lean hips like a skirt, both ornamented with red and white geometrical patterns looked a bit different to the usual stuff people of House Mokai and House D’Ghor wore, but only if you looked closely, and he was almost as pale as the ruling family of House D’Ghor, an cool light brown, slightly paler than K’Felhyr.

K’Felhyr made her way to them. She noticed that their arms, braced on the fundament, touched as if trough accident, and smiled inside. That finally looked like progress. They were still not behaving like an actual couple in public again, but that was at least something.

She could hear the last bits of their previous dialogue: “And then he suddenly left classes, said he had gotten an important call, and didn’t came back.”, Runner said.

“Your astro-engineering professor? What kind of important call can that possible be?”

“Hello K’Felhyr. I thought your lab practice would be over at 1800?”, Rashanur asked, as she stood before them. Runner nodded.

Shame crept up in K’Felhyr. “Well… I was to slow with one of my experiments. Had an flashback to when Elasa was killed.”

They both whimpered sympathetic and contorted their faces in second-hand pain. They both knew all too well how that felt.

“Not even a really bad one, but bad enough that I locked myself away crying for an hour before I could manage to get out of it, and that time was missing from my experiment.”

“But K’Felhyr…”, Runner said hesitantly, ,,…that’s not your fault. Warriors Curse is just… really, really horrible, even the strongest people can get it and lose against it from time to time, that’s why its called like this.”

Then why did it feel like it was her fault? And Warriors Curse or not, it was clear that she was just too bad in this to become a chemist.

“And I had to pay three Darsek to the lab register because I exceeded.”

“What do they actually do with all the money?”, Rashanur asked.

“They wait until they have enough, and then they all spent it in a so called lab booze.”

Rashanur snorted. Runner laughed: ,,That’s the most Klingon thing I heard in a while, and that means something because I just had a class in weapon design.”

“Yeah.”, Rashanur managed to laugh and nod at the same time.

K’Felhyr couldn’t help but laugh too.

“We should go now. I am super hungry.”, said Runner after a while and jumped down the wall. It looked a bit more unelegant than K’Felhyr had expected, but he caught himself quickly, and she concluded that he must still get used to the prosthesis that replaced his right lower leg he had lost in the war.

Rashanur and K’Felhyr agreed, and so they made their way towards the tram station.

She noticed how Runner reached for Rashanurs arm, but Rashanur, just in just as subtle, small movements, pulled it away.

Neither of them said anything and they just continued to walk as if nothing had happened, but she had seen it in the hurt shimmer in Runners eyes. How odd, she thought not for the first time, that they said that his kind lacked emotions and was always cold, when Runner was so expressive, giving away everything he felt with his eyes and the quirk of his brows and the way his lips moved, even if he always tried to hide it. It was absolutely clear, if one just knew that it sometimes looked a bit different to other people.

It seemed like something else to focus on than her academical failures had come, something more important.

“And I was hoping you would have finally accepted if for yourselves.”, she spoke to both of them, but she knew that all three of them were aware that it was directed at Rashanur.

Rashanur raised his gaze and glared at her, but there was too much fear and desperation in his narrow, black eyes to make it truly piercing.

“You were not like this during the war.”, she just wanted to see her friends happy. “In fact”, she teased, “you were very much not like this in our tent and I had the impression that you didn’t really cared if Elasa or I or anybody else saw, or rather heard, that you, two men, were a couple.” Oh, she had definitely noticed more of them than she had wanted, but she couldn’t really resent them for that. Fleeing into these short periods of passion when all the world was so damn bleak and brutal around them, that had been something she had even envied them for.

“Because we would be going to die in the next time anyway.”, Rashanur mumbled so quietly that she hardly heard it, “What would it matter in face of that?”

“We wanted to have as much nice things until our inevitable death as we could get.”, Runner added.

“You see, neither of us believed we would survive this.”, Rashanurs voice was flat.

“I didn’t believed it for myself or anybody else either.”, K’Felhyr heard herself say. She shook her head to expel the pure hopelessness from back then, “But you did survive, and now you are here. And you learned that nobody of your comrades gave a shit.”

“They maybe. But…”, Rashanur breathed in deeply, his eyes firmly on the ground, his hairless brows narrowed to an expression of pain.

She laughed, almost panicked. “We are in the territory of House Mokai! We have not one, but several ceremonies and holidays that honor those who love the same gender as themselves. You seen the Tjoreqa-parades yourself.”

“And it seemed so unreal.”, Rashanurs voice was still flat, “As if this could only be for a day, impossible for more time.”

“Do you know what the original Mokai word for men who love and/or desire other men is? (Runner, don’t spoiler him) It basically meant ‘ultimate man’”

“But that doesn’t makes any sense. If you desire men – sorry Runner, that’s just how it is – you are automatically like women in some way, without having any of their good sides, because you are not a woman.”, Rashanur sounded so hateful it hurt.

Full of sympathy, she said: “In your House maybe. But not here anymore. Heck, in House Mokai men who love other men are even the only men who are given power in religious ceremonies.”

“How did it come that I don’t know that?”, Runner burst in, “I am D’Ghor, we basically live right beside you, how couldn’t I know that? That’s kinda cool, actually.”

“Stuff like that tends to creep out those patriarchal jerks from House Kor and so one.”, K’Felhyr said darkly, ,,So we tend not to be to open about it.”

“House Mokai and their not telling the whole truth…”, Rashanur chuckled, but it sounded forced.

“The point is, you don’t have to hide anymore. You are safe.”, K’Felhyr concluded. But Rashanur only looked down, brows still furrowed in this expression of pain, so deeply that she feared he might cry here in public.

“He is not ready yet.”, Runner said, raised his hand to comfort his mate and then pulled it back.

“You can’t know what it feels like, you, grown up in House Mokai territory. You have never been insulted as a small kid that you would like the same gender when you were older. You didn’t hid and hoped it was just a mistake as you realized for the first time that you were not only attracted to men and those in-between, but to women as well, but celebrated with your family and community – how is it called, this ritual of yours with the seagull-feathers? You can’t know how it feels like. Even you, my dear Runner, can’t really know what it feels like.”

K’Felhyrs heart felt suddenly heavy as stone. How could she have been so foolish.

“I’m… I’m sorry, I just… wanted to help you two.”

Rashanur looked up, and his eyes shone so vulnerable and hurt that she almost couldn’t bear to continue looking at him: “I know. But…”, he shook his head, blinked to expel the tears.

From there on they walked silently.

Somewhen on the way, Runner suddenly blurted out: “A hare!” and pointed at the meadow.

For every other person, K’Felhyr would have interpreted that as an quite lame try to bring their non-existent dialogue to an happier topic. For Runner, though, she knew that it was real interest.

At the first moment, she didn’t saw anything, just green grass, disrupted by brown dried grass. Only as the hare in question finally stretched and stood to its full height, no more hidden by the long patch of grass in front of it, she saw it too.

There was a time where she would have been very surprised at how Runner had been able to see a single hare that was hidden behind grass in this distance. But by now she had witnessed so often how he saw or heard things before anyone else, ranging from birds to hostile soldiers to enemy drones in the war, and it had saved her life at least two times.

Runners gaze was transfixed on the hare, it could have been the fixated expression of an hunter, hadn’t there been not the immense admiration, almost fondness in it.

“What does a hare do in the middle of Rotach?”, Rashanur asked, and looked at Runner full of wonder and pride.

“Oh, they do live anywhere with enough meadows, even though they are shyer than rahnqu, and since there are large areas of green land around the university, that is here too.”, Runner didn’t left the hare with his gaze. A small smile appeared on his lips.

It indeed was an beautiful animal, all angular and lean as it was. She just hoped nobody came and hunted it, that would break Runners heart. Or he would get in a fight with them, preventing people from harming a helpless animal was the only thing Runner would ever pick a fight for.

They stood there for some more minutes, all watching the hare, and somehow, it brought a bit peace back. Then the hare ran off in the opposite direction, and they continued their way.

“Have you seen the latest episode of Space Sorcerer?”, Rashanur asked

“Oh damn, I still need to, don’t spoiler me…”, K’Felhyr said.

“And I wanted so much to talk about it…”

“Me too.”, Runner meant.

Soon, Rashanur parted from them because he had some evening course still.

K’Felhyr wondered if she should ask Runner about how he felt about this thing with Rashanur, but decided that it was not worth to trouble him even more.

So they talked about the part of “Space Sorcerer” she had already seen, and were in a deep discussion on the influence of magic on the perception of gender as a tall figure appeared beside them.

It was a muscular woman in the uniform of a Knife Mother from House Mokai.

“Are you K’Felhyr, Daughter of M’Vana, and Kori, Son of W’Rena? Come with me immediately.”, she barked.

For a moment, K’Felhyr just stared. A warrioress, that couldn’t mean anything good. Was it because of their time in the army? Had they done something the authorities considered as a crime? But neither she nor Runner had really helped this one captured Vulcan, they had just talked with them… Or was there even a new war the Empire wanted them to fight in? She could hardly breathe from fear.

But there was no other way than following the Knife Mother. If she was just half as dangerous as she looked, any attempt to escape would end in a fight, and any fight had a far too high chance of leaving at least one of them, if not both, seriously injured or worse.

So she just gulped and nodded. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Runner do the same. He grasped his own hands as firmly as if he would need to hold someone, something, to calm himself.

The Knife Mother lead them to the meadow in front of the physics faculty, where a golden and platinum spacecraft stood. It was quite larger than the average shuttle, and although K’Felhyr didn’t knew much about Spaceships, this one looked as if it could stand its own in a battle for quite some time. Did she really wanted to find out what this thing made on the meadow of the University? But she had no choice.

“That’s mostly House Mokai design. But this form on the warp nacelles is typical for House T’Kuvma, and there are a lot of details I cant place at all…”, Runner mumbled, who, trough being an Engineer, knew a lot more about ships.

The ramp was down and before and on it stood even more Knife Mothers, but these, she saw immediately, were no ordinary ones. To shiny and ornamented was their armor, and they all wore an red-black Belt and an golden cape additionally. No, that couldn’t be, there surly was another group who wore this uniform. But which one? She honestly couldn’t remember any.

K’Felhyr reminded herself to breath. Her legs felt not really connected to her body anymore. That she couldn’t make sense of it and thus couldn’t work out counterstrategies as she had learned in her own training made the situation even worse.

As they were already quite close, only an arm length from the front line of warriors, K’Felhyr noticed someone familiar between all the Knife mothers. His black clothes were even darker than their armor, the white patterns on it shone against their coppery dark brown. His sharp face held an expression of barely contained nervousness.

Before she was even finished processing the situation, Runner already cried: “Rashanur!” and jumped into the line, ready to fight his way through to Rashanur. It went so fast.

She had just ducked in fighting stance, as one of the Knife Mothers already ducked away from Runners blow and smacked the blunt side of her Bath’Let into Runners face. With a suppressed whimper, Runner landed on the ground. Bright red blood dripped on the grass.

Runner already rose to his feet again, stumbling slightly.

“Its okay!”, Rashanur shouted, “Its all okay! By Kahless, don’t harm him, he just misunderstood!”, then, quieter, “Can you please let me trough to him?”

The Knife Mothers grumbled and shot glances at him, but complied.

In fast steps, Rashanur was in front of Runner.

“Kori, you sweet, clever, beautiful idiot”, there was nothing of the constraint he had showed before. His hands even touched his neck and jawline, if only for brief moments, as to reassure himself to see he was really there: “Why did you do that? Attacking a handle of Knife Mothers completely unarmed?”

“I didn’t think. I just couldn’t let you leave in danger.”

Rashanur signed. It sounded jittery.

“Now let me see your nose.”, carefully, he traced its form with his fingers, ,,Good, it’s a clean break, nothing that can’t be healed in a few minutes. Now if I just wouldn’t have let my equipment in the university…”

“What about the blood?”, Runner asked and spat some blood that had dripped into his mouth on the ground.

“Pinch the bridge of your nose, in this way you put pressure on one of the thickest artery of the nose. Only stop a few minutes after the bleeding has stopped. Now, has anyone tissues?”

K’Felhyr searched in her bag and promptly found some.

“And could you maybe bring me the needed equipment?”

“Why?”, one of the warriors growled.

K’Felhyr saw the fear creep over Rashanurs face before he had himself under control again. Weakly, he mumbled: “I just thought you would rather have him nice and clean for whatever you are planning instead of bleeding on the floor of your ship and sounding all weird because he can’t breath properly with an bleeding, broken nose.”

To K’Felhyrs utter surprise, one warrioress left and came back soon with the needed instrument.

Rashanur was just healing the rupture as another new person arrived. A slender, long limbed man paced towards the ramp, and inspected what was going on in front of it. He was either one of those Klingons who had lost their ridges during the infection, or a human, but why should a human be here? He had light brown skin, the same tone as Rashanur, his black hair was bound back to a bun and a beard covered his jawline, and he had those delicate but narrow and sharp features both Rashanur and Runner surely would have found attractive, but that weren’t really K’Felhyrs taste.

Either way, something about him definitely didn’t fit to the whole scenery, and that made K’Felhyr even more nervous.

“Something’s familiar about him.”, Rashanur mumbled.

“I know what you mean, but I can’t pinpoint what exactly.”, Runner responded.

“Come in.”, the wariorress who had lead them here ordered. Breathing in deeply once, K’Felhyr obeyed. She felt Rashanur and Runner move beside her too.

In one single movement, the Knife Mothers turned and surrounded them, guarding them and preventing every slight chance to escape. Inside the ship, they gathered behind them, building a front K’Felhyr painfully aware felt behind her back.

Footsteps on the shimmering black floor.

A tall, grey-skinned woman paced into the room. The red dress played around her strong, heavy body, a black leather piece covered her chest like an armor piece, ornamented with golden studs. It left excitingly much of the skin under her collar bone and the rich ridges there and of her shoulders free, outlining just how gorgeously broad they were once more.

The Warriors she had seen really had been the Chancellors Guard. That was Chancellor L’Rell.

The situation was so surreal that K’Felhyr really was not able to feel much of anything.

She had seen so many pictures and videos and holographic recordings of her, in fact she had searched for them, Elasa was dead and so couldn’t witnessed that anymore, but they really finally seemed to have someone at the top who fought for their values, and somebody from House Mokai at that too. But none of that had captured just how damn tall L’Rell really was, so much taller than K’Felhyr, towering over her.

But she was just as beautiful as in the pictures, with her strong jaw and angular face and angular nose, the clean, smooth forms of her forehead ridges, the black hair streaming around her face, towards her broad shoulders, and the dress hugging her curves. Yes, she had been the one time K’Felhyr had developed a crush on a politician, she was progressive and seemed like a honorable person, she was from her own house, and really, these gorgeous and fascinating facial features, these cheekbones?

So that made this, seeing her in reality, in truth, just one and a half meters in front of her, even stranger and more surreal.

Searching for any possible helpful signal, she looked to Runner and Rashanur. They seemed surprised too, but not as utterly unprepared and confused as she felt.

K’Felhyr smacked her fist to her chest and just wanted to say: “At your service, Chancellor” or something similar, as L’Rell started to speak: “Rashanur. And do you still have “Runner” as your nickname? It has been a long time since we last saw us.”

Her voice was as deep and slightly rough as in the videos.

K’Felhyrs completely overwhelmed brain needed a second of simply standing there and wondering why in gre’tor she knew Runner and Rashanur, until she remembered that they had served on the Ship of the Dead together and even actually had talked about knowing her fleetingly at some times.

“Not since we fled as Kol took over the ship I think.”, Runner said, and she could see in his face how he immediately scorned himself for that answer.

But L’Rell simply nodded. That was something that had sometimes come through in the records, that she was so calm and friendly when she didn’t needed to be harsh and strong, that had fascinated K’Felhyr. It somehow reassured her, to see it in reality too.

“I am glad you survived.”, there was an undertone of… something in L’Rells voice that K’Felhyr couldn’t really interpret.

She also saw a muscle in Rashanurs jaw twitch, did he wondered if the other people he had know on the Ship of the Dead had also survived or not? But L’Rell was already turning to her.

She felt as if she couldn’t breathe anymore, and as if something was physically holding her throat closed.

“And you must be K’Felhyr.”, how friendly she said that…

“Yes.”, K’Felhyr chirped, and was proud on herself that she hadn’t squeaked “Oh thank you, in Kahless name thank you that you know me and said my name thank you!” right behind that and dance in circles. There was a bubble of pride and luck welling up in her chest and it was hard to not let it out trough moving.

Only after several seconds it occurred to her how strange it was that someone as important as L’Rell knew her name. Why?

“A fellow Mokai.”, was she just wishing this or was there really a tiny smile playing around the corner of L’Rells dark lips? She had to do her best not to squeak like an idiot .

Her gaze rushed to Runner and Rashanur, standing there upright but a bit to tense, and she realized that behind the windows, clouds were flying by. They had started and were flying without K’Felhyr even feeling it. This ship must have very good inertia dampers. Was L’Rell bringing them to something? But to what? And she seemed so friendly. Well, she was Chancellor, so she definitely must have moments where she was nicely put lesser than friendly – but neither of the three had given her a reason to be like that. Hadn’t they? A feeling like crawling insects she couldn’t identify immediately climbed up in her. She breathed in deeply and then out.

This was really happening. She really stood in the same room as Chancellor L’Rell herself, had talked to her.

L’Rell took a step back – all her movements were strong and powerful, lithe, like someone who could wreck havoc on the battlefield, K’Felhyr had been just long enough a warrioress to see that. The strange man that accompanied her stepped back as well, to maintain his position a half meter behind her. He hadn’t moved since she had started talking.

“You certainly wonder why I brought you here. There is a new sign on the sky, a red light. It is not a supernova, or a planetary nebula lighted by a new star. It cannot be verified with our old knowledge. It could very well be hostile.”

So that had been what Runners astro-engineering professor had gotten an urgent call about. Why wasn’t that already in public knowledge? Was it so dangerous that the government rather did not let the people panic about it? Or so alien?

And what had they to do with that?

“You are all three warriors. You survived several months on one of the most lethal fronts in the war against Federation.”

Through sheer luck, and so many of our comrades are dead, K’Felhyr burned to say, we never wanted that, your government forced us. But who was she to object to the chancellor?

Please not send us into war again. Please, I pray to Kahless, don’t send us into war again. I can’t do this again.

“But you are also aspiring scientists. That is what I need. You are warrior enough to be able to protect our people if its necessary, but more than that, you want to explore, not to pick a fight.”, was there a chuckle in her voice?, ,,That is to rare in the Empire.”

She nodded to the strange ridge-less man, then took something out of his hands.

“I offer you a chance for a mission. Everything else you need to know and where you have to come to if you accept is on this data crystals.”, and she laid each of them a data crystal in the hand. For a brief moment her and K’Felhyrs skin touched, and it felt beyond surreal, so real, her skin felt really smooth and warm, her fingernails rough.

She stepped back. Suddenly her gaze flinched to the left, and abruptly not friendly anymore at all she growled: “What are you two doing lurking there?”

In the doorway behind L’Rell, two women in the traditional festive robe of the science masters were standing. As they realized that they had been seen, their eyes grew wide and they scrambled back fearfully. The shorter one of them was grey-skinned and chubby, the other skinny and very pale.

Were that other scientists L’Rell had ordered to participate on her mission?

She looked to Rashanur and their gazes meet. She could see that he found this setup just as suspicious as she. But this was the chancellor, what could they possibly do?

They let them out at Rotachs Central Station, where many smaller, atmosphere suitable ships landed every day (though rarely as fancy ones as L’Rells, it did looked weird between the battered passenger ships).

“What do we do now?”, Runner was breathing flatly, his voice sounded pressed, and a undertone of panic was in it.

“Yes, what do we do now?”, K’Felhyr cried. It seemed shrill even to her ears.

“Breathe”, Rashanur instructed and moved his hands in a calming gesture, “We have time, we will sort that out. We need nothing to do immediately. It’s okay.”

How did he manage to stay calm like that? But then, he was a healer, he had to be calm in stressful situations.

She did what he said, but immediately breathed to fast still. But there was no immediate danger, she would manage this.

“Lets go buy some food and hope they have something other than damn bloodwine to drink here, that stuff doesn’t goes well with fear.”, Rashanur continued.

“Did you already forgot that Lithium is processed in the livers, just as Ethanol, which means that it is medically unwise anyway for me to drink stuff with Ethanol? You are supposed to be the medic of us.”, K’Felhyr teased, but it came out flatter than she wanted.

“If you can still talk about scientific facts, you are not that bad off.”, decided Rashanur. Then his gaze went to Runner, and went concerned. K’Felhyr saw immediately why.

Runner was dully moving forward, his eyes unmoving gazing in front of him without really taking in what they saw, moving too slowly, if at all, his expression unnaturally blank, instead of his usual energetic and curious self.

But she only really realized just how bad the situation was as she found a promising looking food stand and asked what the men wanted.

“It… doesn matter.”, he said to slowly and with blurred voice as if he had to force the words trough.

Immediately fear and concern for him flooded K’Felhyr.

It was so long, since the war end, that she had seen Runner like this; it was so easy to forget that what he called the human word autism, because their own word for it was too hurtful and misleading, was not just superhuman senses, an astonishing creativity and dedication to things that interested him and slight awkwardness. But of course, if one had so much input trough these better senses and different perceptions, and if – as Runner sometimes let shine trough when he was absolutely sure that nobody else could hear it – every social situation was full of the fear to do something wrong, of course one was very exhausted by a hard day studying and then an completely unprompted invitation to work for the Chancellor of all people.

During the war, he had been so exhausted that he wasn’t even able to speak anymore nearly every day. But to see him like this in peace – that was highly concerning. And she hated how less she could do about it, that the only way to help him was leave him alone.

“Runner – is touch helpful or uncomfortable?”, she heard Rashanur ask tenderly.

“Is okay.”

Rashanur quickly checked if nobody was looking, then he took Runners hand and softly stroke down from the base to the knuckles, again and again. Runners tense frame eased a bit. It was such an intimate gesture that K’Felhyr had problems looking directly at it, despite having witnessed much more explicit things from both of them by accident and shared tent in the war.

She got all three of them dumplings with targ hack and vegetables, then they moved to the train that would bring them back into their respective neighborhoods.

“So what do we do about that invitation? Can we actually do anything about it?”, K’Felhyr felt panic creep up in her anew.

Runners head was turning up in slow motion, his eyes still dull.

“We are all far to surprised and shocked by what happened to discuss this rationally today. We read these data crystals, and we talk again about it tomorrow after university.”, decided Rashanur.

After that, they were quiet. No talks about good comics or fantasy novels or series or scientific discoveries like usually.

Near the station where K’Felhyr and Rashanur had to exit, Rashanur asked: “Do you manage it to your station alone?”

Runner just nodded. His eyes were still so horribly dull and full of exhaustion.

Rashanur leaned towards Runner, asked softly: “Or shall I come with you until there, that really wouldn’t be hard for me.”

“I don’t want to make you any difficulties.”, Runner mumbled. There was the edge of something, such self-hate, in it that it broke K’Felhyrs heart.

“Oh Runner.”, Rashanur almost whimpered, ,,you are not making me any difficulties. I will just enter another train and drive right back, not a problem. And if you feel about yourself like this, you must truly be feeling even worse than I feared. I definitely accompany you.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It is no problem at all.”

“I can come with you too if that helps.”, K’Felhyr offered.

“Rashanur… enough.”

“Okay.”, but it worried her, if the usually so articulate Runner spoke in two-word sentences without grammar.

The station came, and K’Felhyr exited. Being alone outside with her thoughts in the city was even worse than sitting in the train with her friends. She couldn’t stop thinking, and flinched even faster than normally. It seemed such a long way. She was so exhausted.

She couldn’t sleep that night. That was nothing really special, but instead of the usual guilt and mourning and memory of in which ways she had failed to protect all those comrades, friends, that had fallen, she was now pondering over what L’Rell had said. At some point some when around midnight, it turned into fear that she might end up on a battlefield again, just this time against whoever had caused these red signs. Her thoughts were to muddled and going in circles to come to any conclusion, anything she could do.

Some when, she gave up. She grabbed her Padd and started reading internet stories to her favorite characters in her favorite dystopian novel. It didn’t distract her nearly as well as usually.

As she got up to get a glass of water, she met Rashanur in the kitchen. He wore his long nightgown, so he apparently had tried to sleep and failed as well.

“Nightmares again?”, she asked.

“Not this time, oddly enough. And you?”

“Worrying about the Chancellors offer.”

He nodded. “Me too. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

She laughed frustrated: “Just that thinking to this time of the night is no good.”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe…. we could watch something or something like this?”

And so they ended up watching “A Tale of Sky-Mistresses and Blades” in the middle of the night. After some episodes, they tried to sleep again, and were so exhausted that it succeeded.

The pondering continued on the next day, just that she now was sleepy and slow in thought because she had slept to less. She nearly fell asleep during mathematics lecture, and drank an extra strong Raktajino afterwards in hope to so withstand the lab practice. It wasn’t as bad as yesterday, but she had trouble concentrating and so was too damn slow again. She finished in time somehow, but the accuracy of her testing only got her one kudos, the lowest she could possibly get without having to repeat the experiment.

Just as she left the building, she saw Runner sprint out of the engineering faculty. His face brightened as he saw her.

He seemed to be okay again. As they walked towards the medical faculty to get Rashanur, he somehow managed to turn their dialogue about that one character from Space Sorcerer he found incredibly sexy and interesting – no wonder, K’Felhyr thought silently for herself, she was nearly a female version of Rashanur after all.

They headed for Runners House at the periphery. It had the most comfortable living room for three people, and Runners mother was still working at her shuttle workshop at this time, so they were uninterrupted.

The first thing Runner did as they all were inside was to pull Rashanur to him and kiss him properly. As they sat down in the living room, Rashanur nestled himself in Runners side, and their hands entwined. K’Felhyr sat down diagonally beside them.

“She said she wanted us as scientists – that’s good, right?”, K’Felhyr finally brought up the topic they were all thinking at but not daring to say.

“But we are all still undergraduates, Rashanur is in his last semester, K’Felhyr is a fourth semester and I am a fucking second semester, even if I am already a finished shuttle technician. She has the whole empire to choose from? Why chose us of all people?”, Runner contemplated.

K’Felhyr breathed in deeply. ,,To be honest, that is something that seems odd to me too. She is honorable and progressive, all I know about her shows that, she surely has her reasons and that are noble ones, but I just cant get any sense out of it. I mean, she knows you two –“

“I only know her because she knows a thing or two about medicine due to her former job as interrogator, so we worked together in sickbay sometimes or assisted the Ships healer.”, Rashanur corrected, “And Runner knows her even lesser, he had a single mission to a wreck with her, and then like one other time where they really talked-“

“-as she wanted to get Voq for a date and he was still repairing an node. I was terrified the whole time trough. She was T’Kuvmas right hand woman, you know, and had a terrifying reputation. Oh, and then I told her about the broken Oxgenator, but that was not really a dialogue.”

“Voq was the guy who became torchbearer after this uncanny Vulcan-in-the-skin-of-a-human killed Rejak, and later T’Kuvma? Who was lower ranks before and a close friend of yours, along with D’Grana? And he was an albino, am I right?”, asked K’Felhyr to distract herself from the scary topic they should actually talk about.

“He was, and incredibly insecure about it. He generally was so less of how one imagines a leader, and very well aware of that too. And he was absolutely gorgeous, with his sharp facial features and thin built, and his white skin made him look almost unreal, like a person straight from a fairytale. No wonder L’Rell wanted him so much.”, Rashanur smiled sadly, “I thought about courting him, but I never knew if he… you know, if he liked men… it would have been so dishonorable and embarrassing to try if he didn’t.”

Every other man would likely be jealous to hear that, but Runner simply said: “He was indeed very beautiful.”He turned to Rashanur, thoughtfull, “His facial features were a lot like yours, actually.”

He traced the forms of Rashanurs face, dark umber fingers on light brown skin. Rashanur turned his face into the touch and closed his eyes.

K’Felhyr smiled. It was somehow reassuring to watch them. How it would feel to be loved as much as these two loved each other?

“His nose was a bit broader than mine, I think, and he had fuller lips.”, Rashanur added.

“I wonder what became of him.”, Runner was suddenly very sober.

“I’m not sure I want to know. L’Rell and Voq were so madly in love, not the showy kind of love but the one that radiates out in quiet moments, they were basically inseparable, and just only Voqs face after he had spent time with her… I can’t imagine them parting ways just like that. Something horrible must have happened.”

“I heard that she betrayed him as Kol took over, but I can’t really believe that. Surly there is some twist to that story.”

“Yeah, you told about that all before I think.”, K’Felhyr remembered from one of the times she had asked out the two about L’Rell. “But the mission.”

“Oh damn…”, Runner went.

“So, even if L’Rell chose us because she knew us from the Ship of the Dead, this still does not explain K’Felhyr.”

“Yes, why some chemistry undergraduate who isn’t even good at her studies.”

Runner wanted to say something, maybe say that she was good and shouldn’t talk about herself like that, but Rashanur pre-empt.

“Because undergraduates are disposable.”, Rashanur said with gravely voice.

K’Felyhr gulped, breathed in deeply to calm herself. “Cannon fodder once again…”, she mumbled. How naïve had she been, thinking L’Rell would be different just because she seemed like a good person in the records and tales and articles? When she was in truth just another part of this sick system, and as Elasa had always said, the system could only be changed from the inward, by a broad movement from everyone. But she had so much wished that L’Rell could make a change.

“It also offers a lot of good things, depending on how it goes.”, Runner pulled her out of her thoughts, “Just think of the status it gives us if we worked on a mission so important that the Chancellor herself oversees it. We would be free to choose every working environment we want later. We could choose so that we never have to come in contact with the war machinery again. Not even to mention how much further it brings us in our studies and that in the data crystal is written it can replace the study semester we missed.”

K’Felhyr thought immediately at her failures in the lab. How much bigger or lesser would be the chances of success in this mission?

“We could be the first to witness a wonder.”, she said, “We could be right there as it happens, like in the stories.”

“And think of how much honor it would bring us.”, Rashanur added.

“But she kind of phrased it as an request, not an order.”, Runner put in.

“You mean we could decline it?”, Rashanur said.

“I think this would be massively dishonorable.”, K’Felhyr was suddenly alarmed, “I don’t think our Houses would dishonor us, but it would still bring dishonor upon us and our families. I mean…”, she thought at how soft-spoken and unaggressive and weak she was, “I was never an especially honorable person -”

“Because you don’t like to go around and attack people and enlist in a war?”, Runner interrupted, ,,Is that really what honor is all about?”

“- but I couldn’t deal with bringing my parents and my sister into it too.”

“I am to different to ever have a chance to be honorable”, how much pain was leaking out of his voice.

“- no, Runner, you have such steady moral and you stick to it, how could you be anything else than honorable?-“, Rashanur pleaded.

“-but I don’t want to have my mother face the consequences for my fear either.”

Rashanur gulped: “My family already faced the consequences me being dishonorable, and I faced them too.”

“Don’t believe your Clans lies.”, K’Felhyr said passionately.

“What did you even do? Just because you’re gay? There is nothing dishonorable about that.”

Rashanur furrowed his brows in this expression of pain so typical for him. His voice was flat. “But it feels like this. And I don’t think I can bear even more dishonor.”

“I get us tea.”, K’Felhyr offered. Tea was so useful to provide comfort and calm someone, her mother had taught her.

As she came back, they drank it in silence until all of them had calmed down a bit more. But something stood in the room the whole time, and finally, K’Felhyr dared to say it: “So we not even have a chance to say no, have we?”

“Theoretically we could, but with the possible consequences to our honor.”, Runner meant.

“Possibly our honor on the one side or our mental peace and maybe our live on the other.”

They talked about this again in the next two days, without coming to any conclusion.

But K’Felhyr couldn’t stop thinking about it, and one thought was especially persistent: Would she ever forgive herself to abscond from that opportunity? And what would she think of herself if she did? What would her parents and the other students and the lab assistants think if they knew? What would Elasa have said – explained that K’Felhyr was too fearful and there could nothing come from this behavior once more?

Then, three days before they should see L’Rell again and enlist for her mission, they sat together on K’Felhyrs sofa and actually had planned to talk about comics and go to the comic book shop soon, but naturally the topic had changed to the mission.

“I do it.”, K’Felhyr blurted out. Runner and Rashanur stared at her. She felt something resembling courage but also nervousness and an strange certainty well up in her.

“Why?”, Rashanur asked.

“I couldn’t stand myself if I don’t. This is the last, maybe, seeing in how my studies went, my only chance to prove myself, to prove the world that I am indeed a good chemist.”

“What if that is too high a price to pay for that?”, Rashanur asked.

“But what if it isn’t, but a unique chance to help Chancellor L’Rell, L’Rell who is the first Klingon in a long time with a vision that is about more than just war, in fulfilling her dream?”

They were silent after that.

“And please don’t say you accompany me just because you don’t want to leave me there alone. I know you and know that you would do that, and as honorable and…. wonderful friendship as it is, I don’t want that you two bring yourselves in dangers when you actually don’t want.”

“Actually…”, Rashanurs voice was uncomfortable. He scratched his newly grown hair. “I want to do it to. Not because of your decision, even though I am so glad not to be alone, but… it just seems like the most honorable thing to do.”

There seemed to be more to it, but if he didn’t wanted to say it… K’Felhyr trusted Rashanur to be honest with himself.

And with an honesty and graveness in his voice that showed that he had thought about that enough too, and wasn’t just following his boyfriend, Runner said: “I go too.”


	2. 2: The Side Effects of Genius

Sera Tur Viev had come to like this in the last two months. It had began as Jyra had refused to carry her to university with her Shuttle anymore.

“But you brought me every day since now! Do you remember that we discussed this out, and had an agreement that you would carry me to university as long as this was the most logical choice?” Sera had pointed out at first.

“But what if it isn’t the most logical choice anymore?” Jyra answered with her calm voice.

“How could that be? I can not fly and I don’t have a shuttle”

“Then use the train and walk or bike the last piece?”

“That would be indeed a possibility.” Sera indeed liked train rides. You only had to wait and get in, and could read or work while the train was driving, unlike to short distance shuttle rides.

“As diverging as our working schedules have been in the last time, with you working at night and so one, it is simply very unpractical for me if I had to carry you to work further.”

Sera simply hadn’t thought at that.

And so it had come that Sera now took the train to work every day and back, and rode a bike for the last part of the way. She liked sitting in the train while the houses and landscapes flew by and she read, and she even came to enjoy biking trough the fields.

At the beginning, she had actually feared that it would remind her to much of her home planet, but soon showed that the grains they grew here were completely different looking from the blue J’nada stems there, and soft hills curved at the horizon instead of the ever flat plain.

At the morning, the atmospheric refraction of sunrise painted the sky in interesting colors, today a pale gold near the horizon, and trough the width of the landscape Sera was able to see the cloud patterns very clearly. Today they were a flat ceiling, blue-purple contrasting with the gold of horizon. These meteorological signs showed nearing rain. Damn. Sera drove faster.

Half way, the rain started pouring down, small droplets for an interval of maybe twenty seconds, then from one second to the next, the drops increased in size and frequency, and soon, Sera was soaked to the skin. How could the weather service on her communicator not have picked that up? Unprofessional idiots. If they had, she would have worn something fitting for the weather.

Heavy wind joined the rain, and now Sera struggled to actually come forward with her bike. The raindrop pelt in her ears, the street before her shimmered with water.

Beside the factory for “Engineered Carbons” as the sign on its fence read, a way crossed between two fields and Sera drove in. A bit more struggling, then she was finally in front of the wall surrounding the private universities physics faculty.

Sera hold her wrist with the implanted chip in front of the sensor. The gate opened with a low metallic hum.

Sera wheeled her bike inside, locked it, and went into the astrophysics building – only to run directly into M’Kara.

“And, Vulcan dumpling, had a little fight with the weather and lost?”, Sera had long since learned to doubt her ability to identify emotions in another persons voice, but right now was clear that there was mean amusement in M’Karas voice. To decipher the insult she had used this time was even easier; dumpling was a mean-meaning comparison due to the unusual pale color of her skin, and being called a Vulcan, well, she was all too aware of why she would say that, and a part of her was even feeling honored about it.

“Somebody who claims to be as intelligent as you should know by now that I am a Klingon, not a Vulcan.”

M’Kara laughed: “You? You’re a walking stick, your skin is pale as sand, just like your hair, you never show a emotion, and do you even have forehead ridges?” As if to underline her statement, M’Kara brushed her hand over her own quite impressive forehead ridges.

An strong emotion seized control of Sera that was most definitely fury: “I am Klingon, my mother had me tested!”

M’Kara burst into laugher. Sera could only stare at her perplexed.

Another detail made its way trough the tunnel of anger. A grey-skinned person stood at the edge of the room. Jyra wigwagged to her, her normally neutral expression quite urging, and so Sera went.

“Let her. She is not worth wasting your neural resources.”, Jyra walked away, and Sera had no way than to follow her.

“I see you later for our joined experiment. Have fun.”, Jyra said as they were at the laboratory Sera shared with her lab-mate and occasional assistant Tebok.

Sera smiled towards her as she turned and left, then she faced the apparatus on her lab table. Half of it was already connected as it should, but the rest she would have to arrange today and run a few smaller tests and experiments on before the mutual experiment with Jyra this noon. One piece was missing.

“Tebok, can I have your antimatter-conductor today?”, she paced to Teboks half of the lab.

The Rihannsu turned, his dark brown and black robes and brown skin an contrast against the white of the lab table and the silver of the hologram projector.

“I don’t need it today anyway.”, he handed her the device. He smiled, and maybe it was the fact that sharing a lab since months built this kind of connections, but it let warmth rise trough her.

She took it, placed it into the fume cupboard she would have to use because the model mechanisms she would use today had a side effect to fasten the decay of matter, thus producing a vast quantity of radioactive particles she didn’t really wanted to have in the air she breathed. And then she noticed something.

“Why is there a leaf in the fume cupboard?”, she shrieked.

“There is a what in the fume cupboard?”

“A leaf. From a tree. In the fume cupboard that is meant to carry toxic substances away and into the filter, not let objects from outside in! Why does the War-science department get an million Darsek atmospheric laser but our equipment is falling apart?”

Teboks voice was something between amused and frustrated: “You’re a Klingon, and still you are surprised by that?”

He did have a point. “I think I am just too optimistic in people.”

Tebok huffed, and she couldn’t exactly understand why, so she ignored it. He then added: “Just call tech service.”

“Tech service will need a week until they finally get to repair it. No, I will do it instead.”

“You are not an technician.”, Tebok sounded concerned.

“No, but I learned enough in my experimental physics studies, and I had to take apart already other fume cupboards. I can master that.”

“Hmm.”, Tebok sounded still skeptical, but attended back to his experiment.

And so Sera took the E-3 that she had actually wanted to use to built up the experimental setup, opened the slider and climbed into the fume cupboard. As she opened the trim on the ceiling, she thought about absolutely humiliating and unnecessary it was that an highly educated astro- and experimental physicist like her had to repair an broken fume cupboard just because the university was to thrifty to invest in new, working ones and the technician team was too lazy to come in time.

The thought that she stood where toxic fumes and dust particles were lead away on other times was also not exactly pleasant. 

She had to take apart what felt like half of the fume cupboard and definitely took far too long considering that this time would be missing from her experiment, until she found the damaged element: The filter had become lose, due to an worn joint ring that should have been replaced approximately years ago. With a sign, Sera stuck it back in, and then started to put all the parts back. The whole procedure backwards. Nice. As she was finally finished, her arms hurt from working over head, and nearly a whole hour had passed.

She tried to ignore the cold fury that had built up in her. Doing science and being angry was not that compatible, after all.

She was adjusting the specific parameters of one of the appliances as the channel to the lab rang.

“It’s for you.”, Tebok informed.

“Ignore it, I have more important things to do.”, surely it was just somebody from the other lab asking how this or that should be adjusted for this or that measurement. Boring work that brought her nothing but just stole lots of time.

She worked as fast as she could, but still she was not fully finished as the door opened and Jyra came in, looking oddly misplaced in her black leather corset, the tight black, ripped trousers and the nearly transparent black cape.

“I had to repair the fume cupboard first so I am not entirely finished.”

“Our university has not the best sense for priorities in where to spent its money.”, Jyra noticed, with the so clear and subjective tone Sera found so pleasant about her once more.

But Jyra, as a quantum physicist who most of the time either calculated formulas or read measurements on the computer, didn’t knew enough about how to set up the appliances for an experiment, and so Sera finished the last parts of the construction while Jyra stood at the side and watched.

The actual experiment made up for the trouble before though. Sera concentrated on the readings and findings until there existed nothing other in the world anymore, and she and Jyra amplified each others theories and enhanced them. Divine was an unscientific word, but it described best this experience. This was her favorite part of her friendship with Jyra.

And then the channel rang again. Jyra already turned towards it, but Sera remarked: “That’s probably just someone from another lab. Don’t bother.”

And so they continued, but they only had to find into the deep concentration from before again. And they couldn’t spent much time in it because then it rang again, and Tebok informed: “I would pick it up now finally. The bookkeeping says it’s an important call.”

Sera hissed in frustration, then she opened the channel on one of the lab computers.

A sharp-faced man with lean but delicate features and black hair tied to an bun appeared, a beard covered his jaw and he wore something that was probably an black leather armor, Sera was not enough an expert in armor to say that for sure. She noticed immediately that there were no ridges on his forehead, and the odd luck of seeing someone like her filled her. Well, almost like her, he at least had light brown skin.

“Are you Sera Tur Viev, the astrophysicist, and Jyra, the quantum physicist?”, he breathed the words out in an strange way that really gave her a hard time to interpret. Was it reserve? Annoyedness? Yes, that must it be, if he had been the same person who called the previous time.

“I am.”, she uttered proudly, and Jyra behind her chirped: “Yes, I am Jyra.”

“And who are you, and what do you want from us?”, Sera wanted to know. Jyra lightly kicked her in the leg, apparently she had gotten some social rule for this situation wrong, but she really didn’t knew which one.

The man breathed out with an hiss that now was definitely annoyed, and said, slowly and exaggerated clearly: “I am the torchbearer of Chancellor L’Rell.”

Sera had to suppress the urge to gulp. And they had left him waiting of all people… Two whole times. She also became all too aware of how unfitting they and their surroundings were for such an important call. Her own, battered grey pullover that was cosy but not fashionable. Jyras leather corset that made it look as if her breasts could fall out at any moment. The experimental set-up behind them that must look like pure chaos to everybody who was no physicist. The streaky glass on the window beside them.

“And I was ordered to inform you that she wants to meet you because of your scientific achievements as soon as possible. In Rotach. I send you the more precise coordinates.”

And with that, he closed the channel.

For a few seconds, both her and Jyra only stared at the screen. Then Jyra said: “I sent the coordinates to my shuttle, grab everything you need in the meantime?”

“What do I need?”, a meeting with the chancellor, that was so high on the social scale that she simply had no available script for that.

“Do I need the same like for a meeting with an awarded fellow scientist? Or like with the dean of faculty?”

“Probably the first.”, Jyra shrugged.

Sera breathed in deeply to manage the strange feeling that surged up in her – was it nervousness or happiness, she really couldn’t say it? Then she ran to her bureau. She grabbed the padd with her most important research findings and the lose sheets of her current research. As she was finished, Jyra came towards her in the hallway already.

“And what about my bike?”, Sera realized.

“Let it stay here, it’s to slow today. You can get it tomorrow.”

After that, they just rustled to Jyras shuttle. Sera hardly sat as Jyra started already.

“Where do you have your science master robe? At home?”, Jyra wanted to know.

“Yes.”, it had just seemed more logical to keep something as precious and rarely used as this at their home.

So Jyra landed in front of the building, and Sera ran inside and got their robes, then they flew on. Soon they were in a near-orbit height where the sky already turned black. Sera played around with her own hands to calm herself. At some point, Jyra turned on one of her awful loud, aggressive music, and at every other day Sera would have complained until she turned it off again, but today she was simply to nervous-happy for it.

“Perhaps she finally realized that this unscientific fixation on war is the wrong way for our society and she wants our help with reforming it to a more rational and science-focused world. She united the great Houses; she ended the war with Federation and she works to lose several restrictive laws about service in war and the treatment of minorities, she could very well be the first of our people in power since decades who realized that we need a change.”, Sera blurted out. She was so happy that she could barely keep in her chair. Finally her vision, her dream, would come true. Finally the world had realized what a visionary she was, instead of putting her down again and again.

Jyra turned to her, and her face was empty as always, but a hint of pain swung in her otherwise clear and soft voice: “I hate to say that, but don’t hope for too much, Sera. She probably just saw something of value for her war efforts in our research.”

All the luck was suddenly gone. Cold clarity came on its place: “Just like during the Federation-war.”

Now Jyra sounded positively haunted: “They will use our research to kill innocent people, making this wonderful knowledge about how the universe works to a weapon, making us to murderers even if we never wanted this, and we can do nothing to stop it, or they will simply force us again.”

That brought up memories of the war she would have rather been without.

But if Jyra was so overcome with emotions, she had to be the rational one: “Our current research is not especially good to weaponize.” Even she was aware that this was not enough, and only the half truth. She hated having to comfort people, she was so bad in it, and that reminded her dangerously much at all the areas she was lacking in. Better think at something else.

“I wouldn’t have expected that she would meet us in Rotach, actually.”, she said.

“Because Rotach only has 4 million citizens and the only truly remarkable thing I can remember about it is this ‘festival of faces’ they celebrate where they masquerade, guzzle and mate unrestrained?”

“Isn’t nearly every celebration ethanol and copulation?”

“Well, true.”, the tiniest smile played around Jyras lips.

“And Rotach furthermore lies at the river Rotar, making it to an important centre of settlement in distant memory, so that both members of the House D’Ghor and Hose Mokai live there side-to-side, explaining the close ties between these two Houses.”

“Of course! Chancellor L’Rell is from House Mokai, that must be it!”

“I have not researched enough about her yet, because I couldn’t anticipate that I would ever need it, didn’t the Chancellor not grow up in another city and then lived a long time in space?”

Jyra shrugged: “But its still her clan.”

They re-entered the atmosphere again.

Suddenly, the chair underneath her and the whole shuttle droped, and she fell. For an awful second she only felt how she raced downwards awfully fast, then the shuttle stabilized and she sat firmly in her chair again. Her pulse raced.

“Do you know how many people die from shuttle accidents each year?”, her voice was shrill, “We will never reach Rotach, we will die before!”

“Sera, calm down. That was just an airhole, those are common and not exactly dangerous.”, and the sound of Jyras calm voice relaxed her a bit in truth.

Still she was very relieved as Jyra landed the shuttle on the square before Rotachs government buildings.

They put on their robes. Feeling the silky fabric on her bare hands, the weight of the robe on her shoulders and its seam play around her legs, so unlike the trousers she usually wore, made her immediately feel different. It was unfamiliar, but it also made her feel important. If she wore this robe, she was at events where she was an important person for what she had done in her field.

They left the shuttle. Near them, an elaborate space craft stood. Warriors were everywhere over the place, and as they paced towards the ship, one of them left her post and guided them wordless inside.

They all wore the expensive uniforms of the Chancellors Guard, and the atmosphere of importance of the whole scenery made Sera almost forgot to breathe. She could feel her heartbeat in her throat.

They entered the ship. On the inside, it was a bit plainer, but still had artful patterns of gold and red on the walls. The door closed, it seemed as if the ship had started.

And then, surrounded by guards and the ridgeless man who had contacted them, the Chancellor entered the room.

She wore an elaborate red and black dress, and her shoulder-length black hair flew openly around her face and neck, but apart from that she looked like the typical, ordinary warrioress: As tall as Sera but much more muscular, angular face, broad shoulders and more curves than Sera could ever hope for. No wonder that Sera always had have trouble to remember her face.

“Science Master Sera Tur Viev. I read parts of your newest paper about the influence of blue giants or red dwarfs on the conditions in the habitable zone of these solar systems including subspace, truly an lecture that could prove quite useful.”

An emotion she had no words for, to large was it, bubbled up in her, and she almost started to talk about the specifics of said paper, until she remembered that the chancellor was no scientist.

“And Science Master Jyra.”, she turned to Jyra, “I must admit, I had trouble with the more elaborate mathematics, but your research about the more complex possible properties and applications of subspace was truly fascinating as well.”

“Thank you very much.”, Jyra chirped in that to soft voice of hers that was almost not to hear, “And I think the mathematics is very difficult for non-physicians.”

So she was not only progressive, but a quite intelligent person. Only now Sera realized just how relieved she was about that.

She looked at L’Rell, and the thought appeared if she also had been excluded and ridiculed because she was too intelligent for her peers in training.

But at least she looked like the ideal Klingon, with her muscles and body type and impressive forehead ridges. She could have only been more ideal if her skin would have been brown instead of grey and if she would have been male.

No, musing about her past was redundant for working for her.

“Truly thank you for honoring our work with this invitation.”, Sera said, and bowed.

“You must have misunderstood me.”, L’Rell said friendly. Sera gave her great credit for not even looking out of her train of thoughts for one moment.

Jyra kicked her shin, as if this would have been a fauxpas she could possibly in any way have foreseen.

“What is this about then in truth?”, she asked, and Jyra kicked her again immediately.

L’Rell didn’t seemed to care about her bluntness however – but with Seras terrible ability to read peoples faces and considering what they said about the Mokai hiding information, that didn’t mean much. “I called you here because I needed your expertise.”

Curiosity and fear battled in Sera. That she put their abilities so highly… but also, this could very well mean that she just planned to abuse their knowledge for war like against the Federation.

“We detected a new sign at the sky, something that can best be described as red burst. It seemed like a new-built planetary nebula or an supernovae at first. Upon further inspection it however showed signs that fit to nothing of that. That is why I need an astrophysicist who is flexible enough to explore new celestial objects. And from the little data we gathered it seems like it is caused by a distortion in space-time-continuum itself. That is why I need a quantum physicist.”

Jyra hesitantly raised her voice. It was still far too weak and soft: “Is there already any data about what kind of distortion it is?”

“Can we see spectrographic analysis?”

L’Rell chuckled. It was so unexpected, and even as she had a bit time to not be surprised by the sound anymore, so deep and growling that it was not friendly at all – rather threatening. Or was she just interpreting it like this?

“The specific configurations are still classified. I will reveal them to you however as soon as you decide to participate in the mission. I give you a week time. More details are on these data crystals.”

She took said data crystals and handed them to Jyra and Sera. Sera braced herself for the bodily contact, but it still felt strange enough, to have actually touched the chancellor, to have felt that this was real.

“Now excuse me, I need to arrange something about the other scientists I invite.”, and with this words, she gracefully paced away.

Sera stared a moment. Then she asked: “Is there any reason why she herself told us about that? Or why she arranges that herself at all, and not an assistant for matters like these?”

Jyra shook her head slowly: “I have absolutely no idea.”

They waited for some more time. The room they were in was absolutely silent, the walls and floor metallic and shimmering.

“Let us explore the ship a bit.”, Sera suggested.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea…”, Jyra mumbled. But Sera was already into the next corridor. This ship with its metallic shimmer was absolutely fascinating, she would definitely try to see more of it.

She heard L’Rells voice and walked closer to the source to see what was happening. She caught a glimpse of Jyras skeptical expression, and ignored it again.

“…Rashanur.”, she heard L’Rell say. Sera peeked into the room behind the corridor and saw how the tall, lanky man she had spoken to turned his face into her direction. His forehead ridges were a complicated pattern of rhombuses, slanted rectangles and small triangles, more intricate than the vast majority of people she knew, but that was about the only thing that looked Klingon on him. He looked as if an Rihannsu would have tried to disguise himself as Klingon, and quite badly so. He even had the cool olivebrown tone that they mostly had. Everything about him was too long and too pointy, his face, his long, narrow nose, his cheekbones, his jaw. Narrow, black eyes were firmly on the Chancellor, and to Seras surprise not an emotion showed in his face, he was only alert. But then she noticed how his fingers moved, rubbed against themselves, just as she did with hers when she was nervous. His wrist was half covered with black bracelets, but on what she could see, his wrist bone jutted out.

“And do you still have “Runner” as your nickname?”, L’Rell turned to the other young man. He was tall and lanky too, but a bit more rounded off than the other, and his skin shimmered in a nice tone of darker brown. He could have been handsome, as much as Sera could evaluate that, she was no expert in this stuff, with his large, almond-shaped, dark eyes, his high cheekbones and the narrow but defined jaw. He had a long, somewhat flat nose and full lips. But he radiated nervousity and fear so intensely that even she could still feel it in that distance. It was in his eyes, in the tension in his shoulders, the nervous little movements of his feet and arms. He seemed to try to control it though, straighten his stance and his expression, but it always came back.

It somehow seemed too deep to be just the nervousness of meeting the chancellor, though that was surely what had made it as bad as it was now. What had taught this man to be so afraid of the world?

Chancellor L’Rell said something about how relieved she was that they were still alive, and the nervous one (Runner?) answered something about how they had escaped from the Ship of the Dead. So that was how L’Rell knew them and why she had recruited them.

And then she turned to the third person standing in front of her.

She was a short, bald woman probably eight years or so younger than Sera. Now that she had noticed her she looked quite unique, already trough being still shaved for war, but she wouldn’t have seen her if the Chancellor hadn’t brought her into focus.

“And you must be K’Felhyr”

Something was odd about her, not threatening, but the lack of threatening. She could have been the ideal Klingon woman, had she been a head taller, but somewhere along the line, all the cruelty, all the aggression had been erased, and left over was this girl. Her cheek- and jawbones were just that level of angular that they weren’t sharp, the forehead ridges curved swungs on her bald head, ridges ran down her long, rounded off nose as well. Her skin had the light brown color of dried leaves. Her body was sturdy enough that it could have looked impressive in another clothing, but her ragged black tank top and the ugly harem pants, either Orion or Human but definitely not Klingon, totally negated that.

Sara Tur Vievs ability to read people was not good enough to know if there was really so much pain in there or if it was just the dark brown, almost black of her eyes. And she seemed tired, so tired, even if it was not that late. But whatever it was in her eyes, it scared her.

“Yes.”, her voice was very youthful and too soft.

“A fellow Mokai.”, the Chancellor said. She definitely didn’t seemed like Sera would have expected someone from the Watcher and Liar clan.

L’Rell then turned her attention to all three of them again, and said what she had already told Sera and Jyra before.

All three of them seemed curious, but also fearful. A hint of… something flinched over their faces as L’Rell mentioned the war, something between grief and anger, a flinch in the jaw of the pointy man, an deep breath for the nervous one and an trembling on the lips of the soft woman. But Sera couldn’t make any sense from it.

“But you are also aspiring scientists.”,(To be honest they all looked as if they couldn’t be hardly more than undergraduates. What did L’Rell actually want with such lowlings?),” That is what I need. You are warrior enough to be able to protect our people if its necessary, but more than that, you want to explore, not to pick a fight.”

Sera listened attentively, and she noticed how Jyra beside her moved a bit closer to the room to hear better too. Did that mean that there was the chance of a war? But how? What L’Rell had told them didn’t sounded as if there was that risk.

Some things happened in front of them, but Sera hardly noticed. All she was doing was categorizing the data she had again in hope to find anything that negated the threat of a war.

“What are you two doing lurking there?”, suddenly, she noticed that L’Rell was directly staring into her face. The intensity of her electric blue eyes almost hurt, and was definitely threatening. The three undergraduates stared at her and Jyra as well.

Sera was to overwhelmed by the situation to actually do anything, but Jyra discretly took the fabric of her robe, and pulled her back, and so they hasted down the corridor, back into the room where they came from.

Her heart was pounding like mad.

“I directly said that this was a bad idea.”, Jyra mumbled.

Sera looked towards the corridor, almost expecting an furious L’Rell to rush through it. She had been so scary, from one moment to the other, as she had found them.

“Do you think she will be angry at us?”, she asked.

“I think she has more important things to do than that.”

Still it was quite uncomfortable to sit there and wait, and Sera expected at every moment that the Chancellor would come across the corner and hold them a lecture of how disrespectful or worse dishonorable they have been, but nothing happened. At some point, the ridgeless man came back, glared at them, and wordlessly activated the ramp to let them out, but that was it.

As soon as they were out in the fresh, warm air, as if to some command they both jumped and screamed something along the lines of “The Chancellor chose us!” or “We have a science project for the Chancellor” that became so unintangable that even they weren’t able to understand actual words in it. They just jumped up and down and grabbed each others hands and screamed.

“Finally! Finally the people up there acknowledged the great work I did!”Sera shouted, and then added. “And you, of course.”

Jyras eyes shone: “Lets celebrate!”

“Good idea. So we go home and get Gagh and watch a sci-fi-movie.”

“But that is what we do always. We should do something different this time.”

And so it came that they ended up in a tavern named “The silver-winged gull”.

“What is it with House Mokai and seagulls?”, Jyra asked.

“They saw how tough and sly they can be, so they have a myth that tells that mystical beings in the form of seagulls taught them their abilities to manipulate and deceive their enemies. Furthermore, seagulls often form female-female pairs, and House Mokai…”

“That was a rhetorical question.”

“Oh.”

Jyra approached the bar: “A mug of Bloodwine”

“Aren’t you a bit young for that?”

Calmer than Sera would have been, Jyra pushed her chest out so that her quite impressive breasts looked as if they could fall out of her corsage at any moment, and said serenely: “I am not. You can scan my ID-implant if you want…”

The innkeeper gave her the bloodwine without that.

“Bloodwine for me too.”, said Sera, even despite she didn’t exactly liked the taste of ethanol or understood why people would swallow a toxic substance like that at all, but if it was social rule to do that for celebration…

“Are you sure you want bloodwine, and not Rihannsu ale?”, the innkeeper asked in Rihannsu language.

Sera was unable to speak for one moment. How presumptuous to assume she was a Rihannsu! She had to hold herself back to not tell this jerk in exactly these words what an shameless idiot he was.

“I want bloodwine.”, she growled in best Klingon intonation.

Finally, he handed her the mug, and Jyra and her sat down at the cleanest looking desk in the back corner.

They talked about the newest comics and each others opinions on the latest episode of “Red Mage”, and Sera tried to swallow down her bloodwine, but still didn’t managed more than half of a cup until her mouth was irreparably filled with disgusting sharp ethanol-and-blood taste and she was feeling nauseous.

“Do you want the rest of my mug?”

“Sure.”, Jyra was already finished with hers, and even had finished a second one by that time.

Somewhen deep in the night, they stumbled back through the streets, searching for someone they could pay to fly them back to Jithznak – Jyra was in no condition to steer it herself.

Even Sera had trouble seeing straight at the edges of her field of vision, and had to concentrate to walk in a straight line, but Jyra was slurring out unintaglibe things about not exactly scientific correct formulas and her surroundings and had to grab Seras robe to be able to stand at all.

Only past midnight someone took a pity to pick up the – as Sera only realized at the next day – quite bizarre looking drunk scientists in their science master robes and fly them home.

Sera awoke with headaches. Ignoring the many possible lethal reasons for that (brain tumor) and simply saying to herself that it just must have been the ethanol, she rolled out of bed.

Jyras shuttle was still in Rotach and there was not enough time to get it, so they both had to take the train to university and then walk. Both were too sleepy still to talk much.

M’Kara was already waiting in the entrance area, grinning hostilely.

“We were invited to a mission by the chancellor yesterday.”, Sera informed her.

“You?”, M’Kara snorted, “What could she possibly want with you two nitwits?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with the fact that our research is good enough for her standards and yours not?”

An very rare occurrence, M’Kara was speechless for a moment.

“As if.”, she puffed then. Then she seemed to have an insulting thought, because her eyes glinted and she grinned gleeful.

“I heard she has a liking for humans, and shares her bed with one.”, she said with so disgustingly overbearing voice that Sera clenched her fists, “And she is House Mokai, and apparently they are like 80 percent lesbians. Sure our pale, skinny Sera here would be of great service for her then?”

“I am not human, for the last time!”, Sera hissed, and wanted to storm towards M’Kara. Jyras hand around her upper arms stopped her.

“You do know how much the leaders of House Kor, House Duras and so one already have a hard time in just accepting a woman as chancellor?”, Jyra said matter-of-factly, “Do you really believe they would have brooked an lesbian ruling them?”

“Furthermore I don’t understand what her sexuality should matter as long as she rules good.”, Sera didn’t care for politics, as long as it just meant lesser wars and more science.

“Wrong answer.”, Jyra sighed.

“Why? Its logical.”

“Because now she believes you support them, or worse, are one of them.”

And really, M’Kara already grinned as if she would have an quite nasty idea.

“Just face that you are jealous.”, Jyra interrupted.

“Exactly! Because it wasn’t you whose work is good enough for the Chancellor herself.”, Sera added. Then she turned, to continue her experiment with Jyra.

“Is she always like this?”, Jyra asked.

“Mostly. Today was especially bad, though.”

“Lets just hope that she doesn’t starts rumors that you are gay or something.”

“Why would that any worse than the other things I am not she spread? Homosexuality as an quite natural and widespread behavior in nature and there is research that it fulfills several important roles in…”

Jyra signed as if Sera would have not gotten something quite obvious again: “Because of the social taboo. Especially for bigots from House Duras like her that would make… well, it would certainly not be good for your reputation.”

“But my reputation is already not good.”

Jyra huffed shortly: ,,Yes… And I am not sure if this is a good or bad thing in this context though.”

As they made a break from the experiment to eat lunch, Sera repeated, and she could barely keep still on her seat from excitement: “She really thinks our research is good enough to make us responsible for exploring a new celestial body! A whole new category of stellar body! This is a huge discovery, one that could be important in hundred years still, and we were chosen to take part in the exploration!”

“Yes.”, Jyra said, but something was off about her face.

“Aren’t you excited too?”

“Yes, but”, now slight pain shone through the typical calmness of her voice, “I am also afraid that they will not care about our research at all and just try to find ways to weaponize it. Make us find ways to weaponize it.”

Another memory found its way to the surface, Jyra and her ducked in front of the screens with calculations, a warrior barking: “And what meaning has this shit? Now do something we can actually use against the Federates!”

“I do not think there are many actual ways to weaponize celestial bodies, besides what the Rihannsu did with singularities of black holes and their warp engines.”

“See, so you already have one example. And from the little I know, this could very well be some kind of singularity, and you know how dangerous they are. Now if they just get the idea to let us find ways to direct that dangerousness…”

“But how often apart from that have people drawn example for weapons from celestial bodies?”

Jyra breathed in deeply.

“It could be dangerous.”, she said.

Now that was something that scared Sera more. She didn’t like the thought of both her superior intellect that could be of so much use for the Klingons and her best friend in danger. But still, the prospect of being the first to make an important discovery…

“Important exploration and doing something for the first time often is. Just think at Ka’Mor landing on Praxis for the first time, or Ch’Kuna and B’Vixis first near-range-exploration of a black hole.”

“But these were not people like us.”, she didn’t even need to say the rest. These had been warrior spirits. Real Klingons.

“It is our chance. Think of how much we could do for science!”

Jyra shifted in her chair. “There is another problem.”

Sera leaned forward to listen.

“If that is really such an important discovery… then the Rihannsu and the Federation will want to see it as well. And we might need to fight against them.”

“Even more a reason to participate.”

“How so?”

“We can’t let something so important fall into the arms of the Rihannsu or the Federation. Do you know how far behind the Klingon Empire is in scientific research? We need that discovery.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost forgot to publish it, and reading it trough for correcture was a pain in the ass because right now its super hot here and I feel accordingly bad.
> 
> Also I am super busy right now and since nobody seems to read this anyway, I will just upload when I have the time


	3. 3: A Case Study of Power

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason why this fic has an E-rating – well, one of the reasons, but the first until now
> 
> trigger warnings: tw dubious consent (not really in the sexual sense but rather in the touch sense, but still scary and disturbing, since it is about Ash and L’Rell, so better watch out if that triggers you),  
> disturbing sexdreams (it starts all to sweet, but it becomes very scary at the end – when the blood thing starts), tw gore (also the nightmare), bullying and suicide baiting in a flashback

L’Rell was aware that this could be nothing more than a dream, not when Voq was so incredibly beautiful, warm, alive, underneath her, his pale skin shining in the unnaturally soft light. The world was to soft and blurry at the edges, her thoughts to undirected and without meaning, and no hair was pooling down silkily over her bare shoulders, towards her bare breasts. She chose to ignore this knowledge.

All the world became their ragged breathing, as she leaned down and kissed Voq, tasted him, her naked body against his. He was already very aroused, she could feel that, and the knowledge sent jolts of lust trough her own sex, too. Without thinking, pure instinct, she moved her body against him, felt him writhe underneath her. His hands traced the ridges on her back, scratched, bright, blissfull pain, and then finally grabbed her ass. Kneaded.

She breathed in sharply as another wave of heat rolled trough her loins. Voq smiled, relieved about what pleasure he could bring her, then it already got lost in his own need to pant for air. She growled, and brought her hand to his neck, felt his pulse race against her grip. His gorgeous full lips parted, his head feel back and his eyes rolled up in this expression that always just alone made her wet. How much she needed him right now…

So she fell down upon him and kissed his neck, hard enough to leave a mark. His soft gasp only encouraged her. She bit and kissed, then she let her tongue dance over the scales of his neck.

Voqs hands were on her hips, stroking up and down their curve.

She felt his sex against her own, and parted her thighs, shifted, so that his hardness pressed even more direct against her. He felt so good.

She caught a trace of his scent. It soaked the air, his arousal, the smell of a man and Voqs very own dry undernote. Even just smelling that aroused her.

“Touch my breasts.”, she ordered. “Now!”, she scratched over his lean chest.

His choked whimper echoed in her loins.

He grabbed her breasts, and started to massage them, and everything she had wanted to say got lost in her throaty moan. Pleasure sparked in her chest, and it was as if it would end up directly between her legs. She moved harder against him. He grinned, and his eyes sparkled.

And then he pulled his hands back and traced lightly with his claws over her breasts… The feeling of their sharp tips on the sensitive skin was…. She howled. He flipped his thumb over her nipple and her breath caught. His other hand was still kneading her.

She looked down at him, at his long fingers around her flesh, his wiry arms, the edges of his narrow shoulders and the subtle forms of his chest, and a wave of want rolled through her.

She leaned down, deliberately looking out that he was still able to touch her, and shifted a bit away from his hips.

His cock was so beautiful, long and thin and with the same kind of clean, clear ridges he had on his forehead, that she just needed to touch it.

Voqs head rolled back and a choked sigh escaped him as she squeezed and started to stroke.

The forms of it… The sensations…

One of his hands left her breasts. Suddenly, she felt his fingers caress her pubic mound and then slip into her folds. She heard herself moan sharply.

Unthinking, almost instinct, she took his hand with her free one and pressed it harder against her sex, urging him to do more. With one smooth motion that was quite easy because she was already so damn wet, he slipped first one, then two fingers inside her.

Oh yes, oh, that felt so good… The pressure from within it brought…

Voq thrusted his fingers back and forth, and her breath came in gasps. Pleasure rose higher and higher.

And then he bend his fingers, splayed them out. Damn. Oh damn. An sharp cry escaped her. She could feel her juices spill over his fingers, drip onto his hand.

But it was still not enough, not direct enough.

But she didn’t even need to talk (and that was another reason this must be a dream).

He spread his thumb, pressed it against her clitoris. She moaned pleadingly. He started to stroke it, sharp sparks of pleasure. It was so much, so damn much, that she came almost directly, throwing her head back and howling out her pleasure, as it raged through her whole body.

Out of breath and still high from pleasure, she turned to him. It was time to cherish her sweet lover.

With a growl, she bend down, shifted, biting and kissing over the clean arch of his collar bone, then deeper, as she felt him writhe and squirm underneath her.

She grabbed for his sex again, shortly caressed the ridges over his slender hips before taking it in her hands again. Finally, Voq moaned, a still so hold back and choked sound.

She moved her lips down to his dark nipple, flipped her tongue over it. An soft gasp. His body shuddered underneath her. She kissed harder.

Voq moaned again, louder. She tasted blood. It excited her.

She felt something wet and hot against the hand she was stroking him with. His flesh was slick with it.

She heard Voq make another moan, but something was wrong about it. To much pain in it. Pleasure and pain were related, she of all people knew that best, but the next moan was entirely too full of pain, despair. Not hold back anymore. Like the people she tortured.

And then she realized that the dry scent of aroused man was gone. Instead, the metallic pang of blood hit her. She felt a pool of something warm and wet and sticky against her leg, slippery and hot and sticky surfaces at everything of her that was touching Voq.

She knew what was going to come at this point, wanted out of this. She couldn’t.

Instead, like steered by a higher force, she looked up.

She was looking at the bleeding, maimed form of something she could only still recognize as Voq because she knew it was him, and because of the bloodied, half dissevered once white stripes of skin still hanging at it.

Automatically, she applied the breathing and posture techniques she had learned in interrogator school to overcome nausea.

But what was the most disturbing was that he felt good, the hot wetness so close to how arousal felt like, how warm and alive (yet) his bare flesh felt under her fingers felt good. She nearly retched. She had learned to not let herself be affected by violence and blood in order to interrogate her prisoners, but this… this was a new form of horror even for her.

He looked at her, his eyes still so brightly blue shining between the dark red flesh. What had once been his lips in the mangled form of what had once been his face parted. His voice almost drowned in the blubbering of his own blood: “Help me… Make it stop… L’Rell, make it stop, help me…”

It felt as if her heart would be squashed, and her gaze became blurred with tears. She wanted nothing more than to just help him, end his suffering. Her mates.

But she couldn’t.

Instead, guided by some invisible nightmare force, she still sat there straddeling his hips, her hands still around him. “Make it stop.”

But no matter how much she wanted, she couldn’t stop fucking him. Couldn’t stop fucking the bloody remains of his body.

She awoke with a startle.

Her shirt was soaked with cold sweat. She could feel her hair again, silkily against the back of her head. Her hands were neatly folded over her stomach, not between her legs at she had expected.

But the horror of the dream was still there. She still felt nauseous, and deep pain over her poor, doomed Voq filled her heart, so much that she just wanted to cry, but something inside her was to broken for that.

But, most horrifically, she felt that she was still painfully aroused. Her panties were soaked with wetness.

She sat up, rubbed her face.

A look at the computer terminal. It was 3:48. Middle of the night.

She groaned, and let herself fall back into her bed. She would definitely not be able to sleep again. Not when her soul ached like that, lasting all the horrible things she had done on her. What she had done to her sweet, innocent, wonderful Voq. She breathed in and out. Her loins ached too.

After every other dream, she would have just masturbated till she was sated, but right now…

She was still far too nauseous for that, and it would have felt disrespectful. She wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on arousing images anyway, for these pictures from her dream would always come back into her mind.

With another sign, she got up. She just would go through all the new bills and correspondence then.

She grabbed some clothes – she was feeling too unconfident for wearing something with cleavage like the golden dress that she mostly wore because it most resembled what she had found out was human beauty standard, in the pathetic hope that Voq-Ash would finally notice how she looked in it. A dialogue she have had with Ujili came to her mind. He had instructed her how to behave as the new ruler over the Klingon Empire as she had ployed herself to chancellor.

“And you need to wear something else.”

“Why? Does my armor not indicate that I honor this, that I am always prepared to fight for our people?”

“Your armor is from House T’Kuvma.”

“I could let new armor be made. Ornamented. I have the money now.”

“You would scare them.”

“Isn’t that a good thing? So they fall in line easier.”

Ujili bared his teeth frustrated: “It is not that kind of fear. It is the kind of fear that lets them mock and attack you and pretend they have more the right to rule than you.”

She began to guess what this was about. She had lived among the other clans for so many years, she had seen it. But she had still grown up in House Mokai; it had been so normal for her to see woman with political, military, economic, scientific power.

“Because I am a woman? What should I do about that? Do you suggest I claim to be a spirit warrior and become a man? That does not work like that.”

“They wont accept a woman ruling them.”

“That is their problem. I can’t give up what I have sacrificed so much for”, she thought at T’Kuvma, lifeless in front of her, at Silrek, Grafk, at her poor Voq, “just because of some patriarchal bigots.”

“They will try to end you.”

Of course they would. But she was already aware of that, of course there would be opponents trying to grab her power.

“But the common people also have prejudices. They don’t have as much power as the Lords of the High Council, but they are quite capable of turning things too.”, he spread his arms, “Look at me. I am nowhere near the highest ranking person on House Mokai, and still I represent us in the High Council. Because they already do fear us. Because our women don’t adhere to their ideas of how a women should behave, but instead take power themselves, and because our men let them and submit to them. Because our definition of honor is different from theirs. They would panic if additional to that a woman would represent us in the council.”

“But what can I do about that?”

“You have to give them as little as possibly to fear you, attack you, cast you in bad light.”

She stifled the urge to gulp. Becoming like a woman of the other clans should be.

“That also means you have to dress feminine.”

So clothes she could barely fight in because it restricted her legs, and cleavages that left uncomfortably much of just these places free one would aim for in trying to stab her.

“To fool them.”, she said.

He nodded.

She had finally found an dress that was feminine and tantalizing enough to both seem like an traditional female and – hopeful – show Voq-Ash her beauty, took it, and went to the bathroom.

She took her pyjamas off, cleaned herself.

Her sleepy and battered looking face stared back at her from the mirror. She took a moment to inspect herself.

Her stomach was flatter than normal due to haven’t eaten for several hours. It uncannily reminded her at how she had nearly starved to death stranded in space.

The black hair falling around her face let it look longer but weirdly also softer than as she was still bald. One the one side the hair was pressed flat from lying, on the other it protruded and was tangled. The scar had healed quite well, but was still to see on the left side of her face. Her eyes were reddened, letting the blue of her iris shine even more.

She definitely didn’t looked like the High Chancellor of the Klingon people. She just looked like an exhausted young woman.

But then, there hadn’t been an High Chancellor since generations, so who dared to determine how they had to look?

She broke away from her mirror image, and put on the dress she had chosen. It was tighter than the armor padding she had worn underneath her armor, and she missed the comforting weight, also, it was slightly restricting around her legs. But the firmness of the black and red leather felt so much more comforting than the too thin fabric of the other dress.

She combed her hair and renewed some of the small braids. It still took her several tries to get them look presentable, so long she had lived shaved for war.

She stood tall in front of the mirror. Yes, she felt much more like a Chancellor now.

She had worked already three hours and indeed finished a satisfying amount of paperwork as she heard trough footsteps outside her office that Voq-Ash had got up.

She went to the dining room to breakfast with him.

“Mornin’”, he slurred out without looking at her. He was, as always, already wearing the black leather armor that both made him look like a determined warrior and underlined how lean he was. L’Rell suppressed the urge to lick her lips. He truly was a beautiful man. He looked different than Voq, of course, but all the features she had found so gorgeous at Voq were still there. The sharp but delicate facial features, the large eyes, his wonderful slender, wiry build… And his light brown skin had a color that was just as beautiful as Voqs pale white.

She watched his long-fingered hands as he took food from the already prepared plates, so alien looking with their blunt tips, but still as gorgeously slender.

Desire crept up in her. A flash of what these fingers could do to her.

She broke away, looked at something else. After all he had been trough, she would leave him the decision when he would join her in her bed again (if, a tiny part of her said, but she ignored it, didn’t wanted to believe it). She was getting more and more needy for each day without sex that passed, burning in lust even when he just accidentally grazed her, but that was her problem.

She could, she contemplated as she took food too and chewed, possibly search for satisfaction in that area with other men or women from her House and so take the pressure out, Voq knew that the Mokai were polyamorous, and after some hissing fit and taking offence that had more come from the fear that he was not good enough for her and she would leave him for somebody else, he had accepted that, just as easily as he had accepted that she had been intimate not only with men, but with women too in the past.

But no, the human part of Voq-Ash was the problem here. She just could not predict how he would react. From her recherché she had learned that while there were some smaller ethnicities that allowed it and they generally had grown lesser strict about it in the past three hundred years, for most human cultures – how it had surprised her that they indeed had several cultures! – taking bedfellows beside your main mate was an absolute taboo.

And her opponents already stirred up hatred against her just because they believed she had taken Voq-Ash to her bed (how much she wished that was true, though). Klingon main culture was not Mokai, and not Mokai was monogamous. She didn’t wanted to imagine how much it would damage her position if they would find out that she not just had an partly human mate, but taken other lovers as well. No, that was no option.

“Have you already written your arguments for today?”, Voq-Ash asked.

“Yes. I am already looking forward for Kol-Sha…”, Kol-Sha, just as bigoted and dishonorable as his son, and atop to that she now had to treat him with diplomacy.

Voq-Ash snorted annoyed: “Oh yeah…”

“But at least I have brought my very own scientists in place now and no longer rely on the reports of the different Houses, and what they might not tell me in order to gain advantage trough knowledge.”

“But is it right?”, sometimes she forgot that Voq-Ash had inherited human moralities as well, had concerns at things Voq had understand were not pretty but necessary. Until he reminded her at it like that. ,,These three from Rotach? The Xenomedic, the Engineer and the Chemist? They are all so young… People so young shouldn’t be thrown into things like this.”

“Voq was younger than them when he consented for his mission to infiltrate Federation, even younger as he joined T’Kuvmas crew.”, she replied automatically.

“And see where it landed him.”, Voq-Ashs voice was flat. “Him”, not “me”…

“I am sorry… I shouldn’t have said that.”

“But it is true.”, his voice was still to flat, his eyes glassy, “I have these memories. I feel how it is possible, absolutely necessary to be able to go into danger for a greater good, perhaps even sacrifice oneself.”

L’Rell hated how hope crept up in her at that. That was just as Voq would have spoken. Honorable, foolish Voq. How much of him was still alive? Was Voq alive in Ash or the other way around? Did it even still made sense to see them as separated entities? She did not know the answers, she had not known what to expect as she had fused their consciousness, just had needed a swift solution before the stress killed him, them.

And she had the horrible suspicion that Voq-Ash didn’t know the answers too.

“But people should be able to decide things like that themselves.”

“They are scientists. They can figure out. And they are Klingons. Of course they would sacrifice themselves for their honor and the Empire.”, she said, more to reassure herself than because it was true.

“Sometimes not so pretty things are necessary to keep everybody safe. Besides these three are Veterans of the war. They are not, what the humans call, innocent.”

Voq-Ash nodded. Of course he had seen that, maybe not the details of it she had read in their files, but the restlessness in their posture, their too alert eyes, how broken they seemed.

She had read in their files that all three of them suffered from Warriors Curse, just as Voq-Ash did from the surgery, and two of them, Runner and the soft-spoken girl, K’Felhyr, had severe depression atop of that, too – for the girl in form of bipolar disorder, it probably had been there before the war too, but had been brought out by the stress and trauma. Thinking at that, L’Rell silently thanked Kahless that for some wondrous reason she had made it out of the war without becoming mentally ill, at least as far as she knew. It was really a wonder.

“And the two others?”, Voq-Ash put her out of her thoughts, “They are mere scientists? Are they aware of what they went into?”

He had a point. As arrogant and entitled as Sera Tur Viev was, and Jyra as her personal lackey seemed to be okay with that, both of them were still open to the world in a way that showed that they had never been in a war. Being touched by, maybe, but never coming into close contact. The concept of innocence was still strange for L’Rell, it was much more a Federation concept than a Klingon one, but in this context she could say that they were indeed innocent.

“It is no war. It is merely an exploration mission.”, she defended herself.

Voq-Ash huffed, an sound so much like Voq that it hurt: ,,L’Rell, you had better tries to fool me. You know just as well how important that could be. And if it is so important…”

“…Federation and possibly the Rihannsu too will want to gather every possible information about it too. Not to mention whoever was responsible for these signs, and what danger they may pose. It is so alien, I simply can not foresee in which ways it may threaten them. But I do know that this is important for the empire, maybe even a threat to the whole of it, and I have to understand it as good as possible. What I can’t do if I depend on the reports of other Houses science teams who might or might not want to trick me.”

“And you can be okay with this sacrifice, simple like that?”

She shrugged. “I have to.”

“Will you finally tell us about the red bursts, or do you simply wait until they become our doom?”, Kol-Sha interrupted.

“I have scheduled an meeting tomorrow where our scientists share all the information they have with the lords.” Well, all the information their Houses would be willing to give free, she added in thoughts. And if Kol-Sha would have bothered to read the schedule, he would have known of the meeting.

“You are withholding information from us.”

She heard one of the other lords groan behind her. She could all too well understand why. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Voq-Ash tense.

“Would I then schedule a meeting with you?”, she said calmly, “Besides, I do recall that your House withhold anything that was more than their most basic sensor readings about the seven bursts. Surely you had nothing to do with that, Lord Kol-Sha.”

Kol-Sha growled, and paced towards her. A part of her almost wished he would attack her so that she could finally punch his ugly, red painted face.

“But this was not my topic. I advise you to not derail again.”

“Or what? What would a pretty, low-born woman like you do, huh? You claim to have power, but you never truly show it.”

One or two of the other lords actually laughed.

Hate burned up in her. She longed to call for her guard and let him drag out, but then he would have the perfect opportunity to rail his followers against her because he was apparently unfairly treated.

Voq-Ash moved, and she ordered him back with an raise of her hand.

“This is exactly what he wants. Stay calm.”, she whispered.

With loud, sharp voice, she continued to explain details of the actual topic of the meeting, military outposts at the border of Rihannsu space, until Kol-Sha blurted in again: “To sell us to the Rihannsu!”

“What in ‘Getting clear border arrangements’ is ‘selling us to the Rihannsu’?”, she was proud on herself on how less her annoyance was to hear.

Kol-Sha simply resorted back to his favorite argument: “You already conspire with the Federation, without them you wouldn’t be in power.”

Shit. That was to close to the truth, dangerous terrain.

“Haven’t you used this accusation not already? Like, at least four times?”, she snarled. Every discussion on fact-level would be futile, because he would twist everything she said into a confession that she really worked with Starfleet. She had learned this the hard time.

“And you have still not answered to it. So you confess!”, that exactly was what she had feared and expected.

“I gave you the truth.”, not really, but what was best for the Empire, “If that’s not enough for you, I cant help you.”

“Your answers in truth were not that convincing.”, the Lord of House Duras chimed in.

L’Rell clenched her jaw together to not show any emotion in her face. Kol-Sha alone, with him she, Voq-Ash, Mowga and W’Divis, the two Lords who supported her in most of her pleas, could deal, but if already someone else joined him and a few other Lords looked skeptical already…. That became dangerous.

L’Rell let her gaze wander over the Lords to see how dangerous it truly was. She counted six disbelieving faces, and even more confused and curious. Truly an risky situation. Then she noticed something else, or rather someone.

Beside the new representative of House D’Ghor stood an strangely pale, tall woman in gold and black armor, golden jewelery hid her forehead ridges, golden bands hung in her face. Dennas. _Lord_ Dennas.

She looked just as the last time L’Rell had saw her, in the hologram as T’Kuvma called the Great Houses together, except for the gold-and-copper mane that reached till her waist.

She truly had not expected to ever see her from face to face again. What did she want here? Didn’t not the representive spoke in the High Council, not she anymore?

L’Rell decided to ignore Dennas and instead say her defense.

“I managed to get hold of technology federation wanted to use against us and used it to create a reason to make us all stronger. To end these pesky quarrels that just weakened us as a whole. To finally make us one race.”

Kol-Sha snorted: “You abolished the Great Houses! You destroy what makes us Klingon.”

Fury burned up in L’Rell. She thought at T’Kuvma, how she had come back from her duty on Battledeck only to find him dead.

“I, destroying what makes us Klingon? Do you even know what I sacrificed to unite us? Do you even care? What you call ‘makes us Klingon’ is just endless fighting that wastes precious Klingon lifes, how can that be the core of our identity if it destroyes us?”

“There is no way a woman could understand that.”

She didn’t know how to answer on that. Every try to defend herself he would be able to simply turn into the raging fit of a hysterical woman now.

She just wanted to start her defence, as calm and reasonable as possible, as an high, clear, almost childlike voice cut trough the mumbling of the lords.

“In the time she is in power, has she given a single real reason to call for her dismissal?”, Dennas didn’t wait for Kol-Shas answer, “If a male warrior does well in a difficult battle, never loses his believe in the Empire and always behaves honorable, would you call for his dismissal?”

“Of course not!”, Kol-Sha raged.

“So why do you call it for a warrioress? Are women good enough for you to die for your House in battle, but not worth enough to command this fight?”

Kol-Sha growled, but was apparently out of words.

The light reflected on Dennas gold-copper hair, and her face was pale in contrast with her armor, and L’Rell felt almost back at the temple where she had undergone her training to warrioress.

She had been fiveteen, awkwardly grown in all the wrong places, and she stood in front of what should be the trainings handle she had been assigned to, and felt their glares on herself.

“Just to make that clear: I wont accept you in my handle!”, the leading girl hissed.

“Yes, why are we stuck with the half-blood freak?!”, her friend chimed in.

L’Rell breathed in deeply to stay calm, and did what the only thing she was ever praised for was, staying rational and seeking for strategies out of this. They were four, and even if every one of them was shorter than her, and she was, through her height and her growing muscles, quite a good fighter, four would be too much. Not to mention that it was dishonorable and broke the code of sistership between the aspiring Knife Mothers to attack a fellow women. Had a boy said that, she would have punched him already.

“It wasn’t my choice.”, she simply said.

The leading girl came closer to her, fangs bared: “I don’t care how you ended up with us, smartmouth. Either you go voluntarily, or we make you.”

“I need training just as much as you.”, as much as she didn’t fit anywhere, she was good in training, the teachers praised her intelligence, she would not give that up. A desperate, foolish part of her dreamed that she would find her place in the word, just as soon as she was finished with her training and would do a job that helped House Mokai.

“I tell you what…”, she jabed her finger in L’Rells sternum. L’Rell punched it away.

“Ugh, did you just touch me, disgusting freak?”, the girl raged, “How do I ever get my hand clean again?”

“That is your problem if you jab at me.”

“So, that’s enough, freak. You will go to the Knife Mothers and tell them that you go in another handle, or give up completely, I give a shit.”

L’Rell almost laughed. If that would have been a possibility… But she wouldn’t say this, acknowledging this would only give them further fuel.

It was the girl on the left to the leader who finally said it, laughing: “Nobody of the others wants L’Rell either. Can’t blame them, ha…”

For a short moment, there was shock in the leaders face. L’Rell felt herself smile.

“Then vanish where you came from. Just vanish. And best you have an little accident with a weapon or something, nobody would miss you anyway”

L’Rell hated how all her cleverness left her at that, how she didn’t found any words to reply. How much it hurt. Because it felt so true. Nobody would miss her if she was dead. Her mother? No, Lerath who had given her a Bath’Let and told her to kill herself if she could not fulfill what she expected her to be, she would most likely be rather happy about that. Her father, who she had only met four times or so? Mara, who was surely only friends with her because she was too weak to survive on her own (she deserved better than her)?

She hated how tears started to burn in her eyes as she realized that nobody would really care if she was alive or not. No, she wouldn’t cry in front of these girls. She would not give them the satisfaction to humiliate her like this.

A high, clear voice behind her, young, but so full of authority: “If you would treat your comrades on the battlefield like this, I would not be surprised if they leave you alone to get slaughtered, and it would be their right.”

The daughter of the D’Ghor Lord, elegant and ethereal, stood just a few meters beside her, her long, white dress with the golden beads waved in the wind. L’Rell had seen her before, of course, had even talked to her because she seemed quite smart and so ended up being the second smartest after her in training, so that they had to work together. But seeing her here, in this complety unceremonial space…

The girls growled and hissed, but then turned and strolled away, not without baring their teeth a last time in L’Rells direction. It hadn’t even been the words of her speech, L’Rell would have accomplished that too, no, it had been her tone. So regal, so full of authority. L’Rell wished she could one day speak like that too.

Only as they were gone, Dennas looked towards her.

“You are L’Rell”, she said questioningly, with her strange so elegant and strong but soft voice. She braced herself for what must come. You are L’Rell, the half-blood. L’Rell the creepy freak. L’Rell who tried to court Reshak despite must have been known that he was far out of her league and got herself thrashed instead. L’Rell the teacher-pleaser. L’Rell who is so shy that she can’t speak half of the time.

But instead she just said: “The girl who is in the library all the time and who knew more about torture methods than Mother Lanna.”

The touch of Voq-Ashs hand snapped her out of her memory. “Is something? You seemed distracted.”, on other circumstances she would have been relieved about him freely touching her, but surrounded by the Lords and her political enemies she simply shrugged.

Kol-Sha opened the mouth to disagree, but Dennas argument had brought the other Lords on her side, and every one of his attacks was talked down by them without L’Rell even having to do something.

As the meeting was over L’Rell saw Dennas leave in direction of her garden. She ordered Voq-Ash to stay on the council chamber, so that only two of her personal guard still accompanied her in some distance.

It was cold outside, a dry coldness she welcomed. She had lived so long in space, she still was able to marvel of how the wind felt on her skin, played with her hair, and at how the clouds hovered far above her. So much space. In a spaceship there was only the rooms inside and then the deadly vacuum of space outside the metal walls.

Soon, it would be cold enough to snow.

She found Dennas standing motionless, watching a falcon that flew its circles far above her.

Another memory came up, her with Dennas and the rest of the clique strolling through the high meadows on the temples grounds where they were taught. The air had been cold just like now back then.

“I should have been able to protect me myself. I thank you nevertheless.”, L’Rell came up to her.

Without looking away from the bird, Dennas answered: “You hold yourself good. Your arguments are sharp, your voice strong and proud.”

“Thank you, my Lord.”

“You’re welcome.”, Dennas smiled slightly. What gain had she from helping L’Rell? What did she want from it?

“I noticed however that you underestimate the amount of privilege these people have. They are born into power, they grow up hearing that the world is theirs. So privileged, being denied even the smallest thing, seeing other people being treated equally and not as if they are mere things they own, the mere presence of people not like them, must feel like oppression for them. You are born low-ranking, and you are a woman, and bisexual”

A small pang of fear in L’Rells chest that Dennas knew the last part about her, the part she so much had to hide in her new life now. Then she remembered that of course Dennas knew, so often she had discussed her desire for all kinds of people, not just boys, as they were still in training together.

“…you are so far from their experience that it must be hard to grasp for you.”

“How do you know about that, being a Lord yourself?”, she asked bluntly.

There was a angry note in her smile. Not angry at L’Rell, angry at their society. It had been so rare that Dennas showed real emotions, and even stranger it seemed now: ,,A Lord or not, I am still a woman.”

But that still didn’t explained why she had done that.

She already thought the dialogue would be over with that, as Dennas turned and said: “I did not expect to ever see you again from face to face.”

L’Rell looked at her, and emotion that could be both happiness or sadness and sharp as a blade came up in her: “I didn’t expected it either.”

It was already late in the evening as she was finished with all her official obligations and returned to her quarters with Voq-Ash (she still called it quarters in her mind, even if by now it was more of an luxurious flat carved in the stone).

There was an heaviness behind her eyes and her mind was so exhausted that her thoughts felt muddled, but still they flew around and mingled, about Kol-Shas attempt to harm her authority, the new laws she was trying to make, Dennas and what she had said. She was so looking forward to read or watch something that would bring her mind away from these thoughts for a while, maybe reading some fan opinions on something that had nothing to do with politics. Her gaze met Voq-Ashs back. Or perhaps something that wouldn’t leave her any time to think in her passion? She had been desiring him the whole day, catching pretty details here and there, but only now she realized just how much she truly longed for him. Not just sexually, either. She was missing the intimacy.

She let her gaze wander down to his flat ass, flat but nicely firm as she knew from experience. Her breath became faster. Yes, but the sexual part of it was definitely what she needed the most right now.

They went inside, and Voq-Ash busied himself in some Internet stuff about lakes and fishing (was that the Ash part of him or Voq? She knew next to nothing about Ash, but Voq had liked swimming and challenging himself in how long he could stay underwater, but fishing?)

She sat down beside him, cherished his beautiful face for a moment. His features were a bit more delicate than as fully Voq. His lips, and their color… She breathed in deeply as a jolt of lust rolled trough her.

“You were very helpful for me today.”, her voice was deep and rough. A faint smile on his gorgeous lips. “Perhaps I should …reward you for that…”, she let her last words go under in a seductive growl. Oh, the pictures that brought… She was wet already.

In the same moment, she reached for his neck, wanted to caress his neck tendon with her claws as it had always made Voq shudder, but before she could touch his skin, he punched her hand away in an single fast movement.

His eyes were wide and full of shock, but a different one than the sweet shock in Voqs eyes when she had called him to lovemaking. She was not yet ready to fully let the realization what that meant about her reach her.

“I… I still have things to do, I can’t.”, he mumbled, his voice unsteady and with, was that fear? He stood up and left the room.

The realization crept at the edge of L’Rells consciousness, and she pushed it back. She had experience in that now. Seems like it would be her hands and her toys now again, she said jovially to herself, but in truth her appetite was gone.

The confusion, the mixing emotions and the memories of the nightmare carried over into the next day, but over all she was too busy to think about it much.

Yet at the evening, she caught herself looking forward to tomorrow. Tomorrow wouldn’t be the first time she negotiated with Federation diplomats, but it would be the first time Admiral Cornwell would come along with them. She had seen her only two times, and yet she wondered how she would have been now. Awaited to talk to her.

She awoke with a clear goal in front of her eyes. She chose the copper dress that felt trough its thick plates in small, geometrical forms and figures close enough to her armor to make her feel comfortable, but also outlined her curves good enough with its patterns to be fashionable and official. Still, what would she have given to be able to wear a simple trouser instead of the restricting hem of the dress.

The Federation diplomats arrived. She recognized the Vulcan ambassador Sarek in the crowd, with whom she had talked before already. She found his direct, rational way refreshing, if unusual to deal with. Beside him was an tall, middle aged Andorian she didn’t immediately recognized, but who must be the Federations foreign minister. Generally there were both Starfleet officers and civilian diplomats, and nearly half-half at that.

And then she found the Admiral. Her heart made an beat of happiness as she got hold of her face, and she saw Cornwells eyes light up too as she saw her. She was well. She truly had come out of the war well.

She longed to talk with her. But at first, the general negotiations would take place.

The negotiated back and forth about military size and borders and territory. It still felt so strange to L’Rell to be in a high enough level to actually decide about these things with her words, not just with fighting directly. From time to time she stole a glance to Cornwell, watched what she was doing, how she was reacting.

The meeting seemed to go on endlessly, but then, finally, it was over. L’Rell used the few minutes between that and her scheduled meeting with Cornwell to walk in the garden, she was still not used to sitting for these long time periods and took the chance for a bit movement. She felt restless, nervous as if meeting again an old friend she hadn’t seen for a long time. That made no sense, she had known Admiral Cornwell for barely more than a day. And yet she was the reason why she had ordered to stop the war. Why she had realized that maybe, humanity didn’t deserve extinction.

She went inside again, hung her coat at the wall, and then, with one deep breath to steady herself, she paced trough the door into the meeting room.

Cornwell still stood near the window, the dark blue of her uniform a stark contrast to the reddish stone of the wall. She smiled again, and inspected L’Rell as she came closer.

“You look good.”, she said with her dark, full voice. L’Rells heart made an strange, twitching beat. “Very different, but good.”

What should she do with that? That was not the expected diplomatic interaction she had planned strategies for.

“You too.”, she said, feeling strangely shy from all her surprise about the compliment, and she meant it. Cornwell was attractive with her lean body and almost but not fully sharp face, she had noticed that right as she had seen her for the first time but pushed it aside because it was not important in that moment. Now, she dared to take in all details about her, how smooth and shining instead of greasy her hair was, the lines of her face, signaling wisedom, her lean body and the slight curve of her hips. There was something reassuring about seeing all this, not quite coming home, but at least coming to a place you had seen before.

“I’ll be straightforward because I think you will appreciate that the most.”, Cornwell continued, without seeming to be brought out of concept through their awkward greeting, “What is it that you want to rather discuss with me alone than with all the other diplomats?”

“The seven red bursts.”

“I thought Sarek would have talked with you about them already?”, there was a sharpness under her questioning voice that let her realize that as much as she seemed to value her, she still distrusted her. She would have been a fool had she not.

“He has. However, I don’t know him as I know you.” She hadn’t tried to escape from her former home turned her prison with him who was supposed to be her prisoner. He hadn’t visited her as she was at her lowest and cut into her mind with a painful truth and an chance of victory.

“You trust me.”, there was a slyness in her eyes she wouldn’t had expected from one of the oh so perfect, advanced, peaceful Federation people.

“I wouldn’t go that far.”, she teased. Katrina smiled back. “But I trust you more than the rest of your people.”, she added after a pause.

She took her time to contemplate her next step. Would she make herself to vulnerable with this information over how less data the Klingon Empire truly had about that phenomena? But then, even if she knew that Federation was considerably better with their instruments and science, the gap was not that large that it would have been dangerous to admit their missing information.

“What were you able to scale about the red bursts? After all, the vague location of them is all more towards your territory overall.”

“Sarek talked about that with you as well.”

“But I sensed that there must be more about it. The little he gave me was so less, there must be more.”, of course they wouldn’t share. It was their number one advantage, their superior science. But maybe she was able to use her connection with Cornwell to get just a little bit more?

“This is all I can give you.”, she sounded so sure that every more discussion would be worthless, but there was also a tiny bit of guilt in it. So they had more information. Good to know.

“I thought knowledge would be free in your so advanced society.”, she half teased and half asked for real.

“It is.”, Cornwell admitted, “However, since these signals are in space, the realm of Starfleet, it is by far mostly Starfleet and makes sense that its only Starfleet that deals with it.”

She cooed her head and grinned: “This is slyness worthy of an Rihannsu.”

“An who?”, they hadn’t had contact with the Rihannsu yet? Also an valuable information. L’Rell stored it away for further use.

“Nevermind.”

“But”, she continued then, “I have to go to my next meeting.” She hesitated, wondered if she should really say it. But if she felt it so strongly and it was so positive, could it be bad? “It was good to see you again.”

Cornwell broke in a smile. It was very beautiful when she smiled: ,,You too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter I have finally goes back to the characters of the first chapter, but I haven't edited it yet


	4. 4: The Potential of Pain In Difference

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw internalized homophobia, tw internalized ableism (both in the scene where they lay and talk after sex)

It had been eleven weeks and two days since Runner, Rashanur, the girl named K’Felhyr they had come to know as a friend and all the others, from whom so many weren’t even alive anymore at this point, hat been commanded into war by their houses. There were battle noises somewhere in the far, disruptor and phaser sounds, screams and things exploding, but they knew that they were so far away right now that they didn’t threatened them.

Runner was so exhausted physically and emotionally that he wanted just to sleep and know that he was safe, sleep in Rashanurs arms. He was so exhausted that even thinking was difficult, his thoughts not words anymore, but blurred things mixed with too strong emotions. Too exhausted to stop the tears streaming over his face, and too safe with Rashanur to have to.

They sat in their tent, closely embracing each other. Even just the warmth of Rashanurs body beside him, feeling his arm around him, Rashanurs lean body under his own arm around his torso, was reassuring and calming. Runner looked to the side to Rashanur, and saw that tears were dropping down his face too.

,,…see how far we came, my wonderful, brave Runner? You said two weak, frightened failures in being Klingons like us wouldn’t survive more than two weeks, and now we are out here almost three months.”

Hesitantly, Runner opened his mouth. It was so hard to form words, so exhausted was he: “Do you mean we can survive this?”

He couldn’t help but feel luck well up in him. How strange it felt at this point.

He felt Rashanur breathe in deeply: ,,I wouldn’t have dared to believe it possible, but now...”And then, beating, shy, ,,I love you.”

“And I love you too.”

It was Runners happiest memory from the war.

Half asleep and half awake, Runner rolled over in his bed. He tried to continue sleeping, but the memory was so strong that it kept him awake. It was pointless. He turned on his back, stared at the ceiling. In the darkness, the posters of hares and his self-made drawings of his favorite characters from his favorite science fiction series were only dark schemes at the wall.

He couldn’t help that another memory crept up in his mind. Even just seeing the plain white walls of the hospital, the medical devices hurt already, as if the whole scenery was painted in pain.

He looked down at Runner, even thinner than usual against the fabric of the hospital bed, his skin a sick, pale greybrown instead of the beautiful light brown it usually was. His hand was a bit too cold in his. But he had survived. That was all that counted, he had survived, and Runner still was hardly able to grasp his luck.

But then Rashanur raised his voice, a bit too weak as it still was. Even back then, Runner had instinctively felt that this would hurt now, and braced himself for the impact: ,,I am so sorry but… I just can’t do this like during the war anymore. We are still mates. But I can’t be touching you like this when we are out there and the whole world would realize that we are the enemy. That we are wrong and perverts.”, such self-hate in his voice, Runner just wanted to help and didn’t know how,” I managed to escape these people but I don’t want to make them run into me again like this.”

Runner shook his head to expel the memory. Breathed in deeply. The painful feeling stayed.

Again, he tried to sleep, but he just turned and turned and his thoughts always came back to Rashanurs words. There was only one possible way out of it, only one solution his mind could come up with. He grabbed his communicator, opened a channel.

The moment the connection was established, he felt foolish and egoistical for having done this. It was too early in the morning. He should have found another way.

Still his heart longed for Rashanur.

Rashanur took the call almost immediately, too fast for Runner having pulled him from sleep. At least that…

“Can I disturb you? I had a dream from the war and needed to hear your voice.”

Rashanur smiled softly, tenderly, but seemingly a bit afraid, or was Runner misreading his tone?

“You can always disturb me. I am already awake.”

“So it would neither wake nor disturb you, but since I am not in a condition to make good science, it would be a good solution to come over. Can I?”

Rashanur smiled again. There was a warmth in his words that was so good that it almost hurt. “Of course”

Runner put his armor and everything else he needed together and left a note for his mother that he would go already earlier and start from his friends. That would also spare him the painful farewell from her.

He took the next train.

The world blurred around him as he ran, details, sights, sounds, how the floor felt under his feet, all reaching him and already disappearing, at exactly the perfect velocity. He loved the sensation of this. At night, the world looked even more different to when he did this at day, quieter, more secretive somehow. Almost nobody was there so early in the morning, and the darkness of night painted everything in dark colors. It was cooler than at day, almost a nice temperature. It felt like almost a different dimension.

He reached the train station. Normally, he read or looked at fan stuff on the internet in the idle time, but now he found himself walking back and forth, and running from one end of the station to the other since nobody was there to watch and find his behavior strange.

Finally, the train came. Runner tipped his leg up and down the whole time and stared out of the window. There was something fascination about how the city flew away under him, first Rotachs suburbs, then Rotach itself. The city looked so different at night.

He tried to do what he did normally, reading, but found himself restless that he lost concentration already after one or two sentences, and at every sound and creak of the train he flinched and had to look up.

Somewhere near inner-city, an obviously drunk woman entered the train, and even before she did anything suspicious, Runner felt his back tense, felt his heart race. He breathed in deeply, forced himself to look away. He had always been jumpy and too afraid of everything, but after the war, warriors curse had made it even more extreme. He was nevertheless quite relieved as she left two stations later.

He tried to force himself to think at Rashanur, his beautiful narrow lips, his neck, his colar bone, his long, lean legs (oh Kahless he loved his legs!), but that only brought him back to these painful memories and made him worry that Rashanur really did not wanted him anymore – why should he, Runner had never really understood what he wanted with an disabled chicken-heart like him.

The sharp pain stayed, even as he searched after other topics to think off. The very erotic drawing of Mara the space sorcerer and Worf the mage from Space Sorcerers he had just finished two days ago! He really liked how it had turned out, and both K’Felhyr and Rashanur had liked it as well. But somehow, the pride from back then did not came back.

The station closest to Rashanur and K’Felhyrs apartment came, and he exited.

Climbing up the stars, he thought of what an hot gesture it would be, now that K’Felhyr was very surly asleep, if Rashanur opened the door to their apartment naked. Naturally he didn’t.

He did wore his nightgown though, rough-weaven white flowing down his lean form, letting the light brown of his skin shine. It left his thin arms free, and, suddenly hungry for him, Runner let his gaze wander down, took in how the flow of the fabric hinted at the forms underneath, and finally ended just under his knees, leaving free wiry, well formed lower legs.

Rashanur seemed to have noticed his gaze, because his lips quirked to a smile. There was nothing of the sleepyness in his eyes that should have been there at this time of the night, and Runner tried not to think at the reason why he was awake at this time to not ruin his mood.

Without needing to talk about it, they went into Rashanurs room. The desk, the working terminal, the comic shelfs, the superhero figurines, the pallet, all looked so nice and tidy, Runner still didn’t understand how he could keep it so organized. His gaze found Rashanur again.

“Is there a reason why you wanted to see me in the middle of the night?”, there was a growl in his words that almost made him hard right now.

“I just wanted to see you.”, Runner said, suddenly not wanting to discuss their problems anymore, just be here, together.

Rashanur growled again. Runner breathed in deeply and relished in how the sound echoed in his loins. “Well here I am.” They both knew that there must be more to it, and both chose to ignore it.

Rashanur stepped forward, took his face in the hands and kissed him. Deeply. Dearly. How could Runner have doubted his love? He slung his arms around Rashanurs waist and pulled him closer to him, to feel all the details of his body.

Their tongues entwined, pressed against each other, Rashanurs lips caressed his, and Runner pushed his tongue deeper into Rashanurs mouth, making him sign against him. More pressure between his legs.

Rashanurs hands left his face to close around his upper arms, his whole body pressed against Runners, forcing him back. Runner fought back, but having been caught off guard, it was too late. His back smacked against the wall, and milliseconds later Rashanur pressed himself against his front. He was caught. Caught between his beautiful lover and the wall.

Rashanurs mouth left his, and wandered to his neck, kissed and licked and bit a path down from his ear to his collar bone. His breath caught. Rashanurs hands wandered down his arms, and then he ran his fingernails over his bare underarms. It felt as if electricity would race trough his veins. He actually shivered.

Feeling Rashanurs firm body pressed against his, and being touched like this, now he was definitely getting hard. And the thought that his mate must feel his arousal turned him on even more. He could feel that this knowledge definitely did something to Rashanur too.

Using Rashanurs loosened grip, he threw him away from him, grabbed one arm and pulled to turn him, and then shoved him forward.

He caught a glimpse of how Rashanurs erection jutted out from the flow of the nightgown, and the sight alone let him almost moan with want.

Another quick shove. Rashanur landed with the upper body on his desk, Runner quickly pushed him down so that he stayed there. His loins were pressed against his ass, creating wonderful friction, and he wanted to say how gorgeous Rashanurs ass looked in this nightgown, but the words didn’t quite made it out of his mouth, even after all this time, all the things they had gone trough.

Instead he bend down and buried his face in the short black hair on the back of Rashanurs head. The sensation and its scent was still so new for him, so long he had known Rashanur only shaved clean for the war. The scent intoxicated him.

He got a bit lower and kissed Rashanurs neck, feeling the gorgeous scale-like ridges over his spine against his lips. A shaking breath from Rashanur. He kissed harder, and then bit. Rashanur trembled underneath him. A choked moan escaped him. Runner instinctively rocked his hips against his ass. 

“Ooh, you are quite turned on already now, are you?”, Rashanur pressed out. His voice was already disrupted with pants.

Runner smacked him back on the table, then stroke his hip with the other hand. “And you are not?”

A breathy, low sign.

“But eh, lets get away from the table, I don’t think it’s wise to have sex on your xeno-cardiology homework.”

Rashanur chuckled.

“Probably not.”, and he turned in a fast movement that almost threw Runner from his feet, but this time he had expected it, and stood in fighting stance immediately. They exchange a few blows until the distance became to close and they fell wrestling on Rashanurs sparse bed.

The way he felt Rashanurs wiry muscles shift against him, only the fabric of their clothes still separating them…

He took what he could reach of the nightgown and pulled it up, finally reached Rashanurs smooth, hot skin. Rashanurs hands were busy at the fastenings of his top.

Cooler air hit his chest, and with his hands under Rashanurs nightgown and Runners top open, they laid there entangled, Runners leg slung around Rashanurs hip, bodies pressed together, rubbing against each other. Runner could feel Rashanurs arousal against his own. He signed, and kissed Rashanurs neck harder. Rashanurs one hand was pulling lightly at his hair, the other shoved under the hem of his trousers, kneading his ass. The pressure, the closeness, it was wonderful.

At some point Rashanur entangled from it, finally pulled the nightgown over his head and reached in the nightstand.

Anticipation prickled in Runners loins. He had actually looked forward to cherish Rashanur this night, but he could quite imagine what his mate was searching in there and that was definitely nice too.

With a mischievous grin, Rashanur laid the pair of black leathern wristbands, connected with an metal cord, down on the bed.

Runner took his time in admiring his bare torso and arms, before he grabbed the wristbands.

Rashanur smirked at him as if he had something very dirty to say, but on the way out, the words became to a slightly nervous: “I thought it might be nice if I have my way with you this time.”

Runner breathed in deeply as the meaning of the words reached him. Yes, he had been aware what Rashanur was planning, but hearing it was something entirely else. “That sounds quite good indeed.”

“Put down your top.”, Rashanur ordered, more confident now. Runner did. Then he took the wristbands, unlocked the cord and started to put them on. Rashanur helped.

“Hands over your head”, with another tingle of anticipation, he obeyed.

“Good.”, Rashanur growled, and reconnected the chain between the wristbands so that the bar of the Bookshelf hindered him from moving away. Again, he took in the form of Rashanurs naked upper body, the sharp lines of his face, the gorgoues patterns on his forehead and the way he was looking down on him, so confident, unafraid, not afraid anymore to be in focus and himself with all his desires as he was to normal time. Warmth spread trough his chest that had nothing to do with the throbbing between his legs.

He turned his wrists in their bounds to found the most comfortable position. Luckily, the inside of it was covered in thick fabric; Rashanur knew how much Runner hated the sensation of sharp leather edges or even worse metal on his wrists, as what they have had on the Ship of the Dead.

He heard Rashanur breath in sharply. “You look so good.”, he said almost shyly, as if still, after all these time, a bit insecure about his desires, but with an focus in his gaze that let Runner tense in his bounds.

“I wonder what you will only say when you pulled my trouser down.”, Runner responded with a growl on his own.

“Hmmm.”, slowly, Rashanur bent down to him and started to kiss his neck, slowly, intensely. Runner heard himself breathe hard. He could feel Rashanurs arousal against his hip. He tried to roll his own hips up to press himself against him, but Rashanur only chuckled and pushed him back with a hand on his flank. Feeling his grip so close to his loins was tantalizing. But there was nothing he could do about it, and somehow, this was the fun in this whole thing, having to trust your lover, waiting for what you needed so that it was so much more intense when you finally got it.

Suddenly, Rashanur traced his fingernails up his flat stomach, just over the thin line of dark hair there, and then the ridges over his chest. It felt as if electricity would race trough his body. He shivered and panted.

He heard Rashanur pant too. His lips found their way to his neck again, and one of his hands moved oh so slowly down from his wrist down his arm, fingernails hardly touching his skin. Paradoxically, it was so intense that Runner couldn’t help but moan and close his eyes, submit to it.

He felt Rashanur move over him, smooth skin and ridges grazing his, then he covered his lips in a brief kiss. Runner arched his body towards him, wanting, needing friction, but Rashanur was already moving back, running his hands down Runners arms and shoulders firmly, massaging, then down his chest and stomach, and finally his trousers, opening them and pulling them down.

“Yes…”, Runner mumbled. (It got caught a bit in the prosthesis at his right calf, but he couldn’t care less)

It felt so, so good how his cock was finally free from the too tight trousers. Rashanur hungrily stared down at it, breathing hard. Then he seemed to have decided what to do next and moved to his healthy leg. Runner hummed with pleasure as Rashanur ran his hands up and down the underside of his leg, categorizing its form. He remembered how Rashanur had said how much he liked his legs, and the thought that he really, in truth must find him beautiful sparked warmth in his chest anew.

He was ripped abruptly out of his thought as Rashanur suddenly passed his fingernails lighly over the inside of his thighs, a touch that ended up directly in his loins. He actually shivered, his body flinched helplessly. Rashanur repeated it. Runner couldn’t help but arch his head back and moan and whimper. It was so intense, it almost hurt, but only almost, and sometimes a bit pain was actually pleasurable.

“Good.”, Rashanur moaned. And then he scratched over his lower stomach and the ridges over his hip bone. Without really wanting it, simple instinct, Runner arched his body towards him. The bounds were pressing into his wrist, but he hardly noticed because Rashanur was already passing another light, electrifying touch over him.

All the world concentrated in this moment, in these touches and the pleasure they let rage trough his body. Somewhere far away, he heard Rashanur breath hard in unison with him.

At some point, Rashanurs ministrations stopped, and dazedly, Runner opened his eyes.

“Wait here”, Rashanur said as he got up and left the room to get something, as if Runner would be in any position to not stay where he was (well, with a lot of effort and contortion, he could have indeed escaped his bounds, but he didn’t exactly wanted to).

Rashanur came back with a cup full of ice. Runner smiled. That was something D’Grana had given a tip of to them back then on the ship of the Dead, what she had learned from Silrek, who in her turn seemed to have got that directly from L’Rell, who apparently knew a lot about these things, given Voqs dumbfound smiles. Runner shook his head, he didn’t wanted to think at all these people who might even be dead by now.

Rashanur took an ice cube from the cup and hold it over Runners stomach. Cold melting water driped down on him, and he flinched. It was an pleasurable sensation, the coldness in the warmth surrounding them and against his heated skin. Rashanur droped the ice cube and Runner shivered and sighned, and the sensation how the ice melted on him was…

Rashanur grinned, then let more water drop down on him. Runner hummed low in pleasure.

Suddenly, he felt Rashanurs hand on his cock, and as he already thought that finally he would touch him there, something cold touched his glans and melted immediately, cold water droping down his cock. He nearly screamed. Feeling the ice melt on this sensitive place was just such a good and weird sensation, so intense.

Rashanur gasped as well, a response to his reaction. “Kahless, you’re so pretty…”, he pressed out.

Runner laughed softly. Rashanur shut him up by bending down and kissing him passionately, and climbing on top of him. His weight on him felt wonderful, but even better was the friction against his arousal. He immediately began to thrust his hips up against it. Rashanur moaned. Even more lust raced trough Runners body and he rocked his hips even harder. Rashanur started moving against him too. The water on Runners stomach made their skin smooth and slick. He could already feel a wet spot on Rashanurs underwear that had nothing to do with the melt water.

Rashanur clung onto Runner, his arms tightly on his side, his legs pressed against his own, and feeling how much Rashanur wanted him let the pressure rise even higher in him.

They moved against each other, their moans and pants blending into each other. Rashanurs breath was hot against Runners skin, his lips frantically found his neck. Every moan aroused him more.

He looked down at their entwinded bodys, Rashanurs lighter brown against his warm umber, the lean muscles moving under Rashanurs skin.

He wanted to sling his arms around his lovers body, explore him and grab his firm ass. He could do nothing of it, but lying so fully at mercy of him underneath him was wonderful as well. Everything was the warm touch of the other. The scent of his arousal soaked the air. It was so damn intense that it was almost too much, but only almost.

Somewhen, Rashanur shifted his weight and moved lower, his mouth still on Runners neck, on the crook of his shoulder, tracing the ridges over his collarbone with his tongue. Runner sighed.

“Do you like that?”, Rashanur growled low and seductively.

“Yes…”, Runner gasped, as Rashanur did something particularly good with his tongue. 

But Rashanur got even lower, and flicked his tongue over his nipple. “Oooh yes…”, Runner whimpered. Rashanur looked up to him, a mischivious sparkle in the black of his eyes, and continued. Runner closed his eyes, arched his body towards him and gasped.

But it was not until Rashanur slide one hand down between his legs and lightly caressed his cock, all while continuing to kiss his chest, that Runner started to feel as if there wasn’t enough air to breath anymore.

“Everything alright?”

“Y…yes…Its just… s..so good..”, he somehow panted out. Rashanur smiled up to him in a way that somehow was both full of love and definitely filthy at the same time… then he bent down and put his moth on Runners cock.

Whoa. Oh whoa. Rashanurs lips were hot and wet and so, so soft, and Runner sank back on the bed and closed his eyes. Feeling all of these wonderful things, and seeing that, too, would have been just to much.

Allready feeling Rashanur kiss the tip of his cock all while stroking the base, adding more pressure on the ridges down the shaft, made him moan and gasp helplessly. Pleasure rolled in waves trough him, rising higher and higher. Rashanur suckled and licked and kissed.

Then he changed to flicking his tongue in small, fast movements over his glans. Runner arched his head back, instinctively pressed into the touch, and actually screamed. Oh, he was so, so close to coming, only a little bit more, a little bit harder…

But Rashanur backed away from him, and reached for his bounds instead. A soft click as he opened the chain connecting the wristbands.

Runner blinked, still to dazed to think for a moment. Then he truly realized that he was free to do whatever he wanted, and he grabbed Rashanur and pressed him to the bed and threw himself on top of him, and not even bothered to take off the wristbands first.

Feeling Rashanurs lean, firm body underneath him was so wonderful. He shifted his hips a bit so that his groin was directly over Rashanurs, and ran his hand up and down his flanks, directly beside the zig-zagging edges of the wartime scar. Rashanur let out an long, deep moan. The way his head fell back and his eyes closed and sweat glistered on the beautiful patterns on his forehead was most gorgeous.

“What exactly did you expected to happen as you freed me?”, Runner growled and pressed his groin harder against the others.

Instead of an answer, Rashanur only moaned again.

Runner realized that Rashanur was still wearing his underwear, soaked with his anticipation as it was now. It had to go.

He sat up and took the wristband of Rashanurs underwear. It was the tight standard-regulation army stuff, and he could wonderfully see the form of Rashanurs sex trough it, pressing against the black fabric. Slowly, Runner pulled it down.

Hot throbbing in his own cock as he took in the forms of Rashanurs sex, the ridges, how his glans shimmered with precum.

He followed the pattern of those ridges with his fingers and Rashanurs cock twitched towards the touch. Rashanur made an chocked whimpering sound. Runner gasped himself and took Rashanurs cock in his hands. Feeling all those details… He stroke him in slow, to soft movements, let him wait like Rashanur had left him wait.

Still Rashanur was gasping, shaking and arching under his touch, and he looked so damn inviting that Runner bent forward and laid down on him again. Oh, the friction of his body against Rashanurs… feeling his hard cock against his own… Almost instinctively, he started to rock his hips against Rashanur.

“Yes…”, Rashanur gasped. Runner moved harder and buried his face in Rashanurs neck. Rashanur slung his legs around him to press them closer together.

They moved against each other, then with each other, and the pressure was incredible, rising and rising, but it was not enough, not enough to let him come finally.

So Runner grabbed Rashanurs hand and placed it on his cock. Immediately, Rashanur stroke him in a fast, hard rhythm, and it almost reduced him to simply lying there, gasping and shuddering with pleasure. Frantically, he took Rashanur in his hand as well. He couldn’t concentrate much on him though.

Every stroke sent waves of violent pleasure trough him. He felt his body shook and spasm uncontrollably. He opened his eyes to got hold of Rashanurs, the others face just as contorted with pleasure as his own. The scent of him, of their lust, soaked the air.

He looked down. Rashanurs long finger around him, the contrast of his lighter brown against the flushed darker one of his sex…

A few more strokes, then the pleasure became too much, and raced trough his whole body, making him shake and shake and cry out. Somewhere far away, he heard Rashanur gasp as his hot seeds spilled against his stomach.

Unable to do anything for a moment, Runner collapsed on the bed. Only after a few seconds his thoughts became coherent enough again to realize that Rashanur was still waiting for his release.

He rolled half on, half beside Rashanur again, sat up to have better access. Then he continued touching him. Rashanur was close too, from the way his body shook and arched off the bed and the desperation in his breathy moans.

With his other hand, Runner started caressing Rashanurs wiry thighs and then moved higher, kneaded his testicles firmly.

Rashanur made an weird whimpering sign. It sounded gorgeous.

Runner bent forward and flicked his tongue over the hard form of Rashanurs nipple. Feeling his chest underneath his lips, feeling his lover shake… He continued for quite a while.

Then he changed back to stroking him with both hands. More and more precum was welling out of him, and Runner spread it with slow circeling movements of his thumb. The sound Rashanur made was… Suddenly, Runner was very out of breath again.

Rashanurs whole body started shaking and shivering heavily, he rutted against Runners hands, his eyes were closed, his mouth opened to an silent scream. He was so, so beautiful like this.

With an last arch towards Runners hands and an chocked gasp, Rashanur came, several hot spurts over Runners hands and his own stomach.

They laid there for a while, cherishing the peaceful feeling after orgasm. Then they cleaned themselves, and returned to the bed afterwards, Runner spooning Rashanur, his arms slung around the others body, Rashanur caressing his wrists and upper arms.

It was so, so wonderful, to feel him in his arms like this, his warmth and forms and scent. Peaceful.

He kissed Rashanurs neck softly, then he cuddled up to him closer and closed his eyes.

But he couldn’t sleep. There was a sharp edge in the background, dark and painful. Rashanur shifted and turned around, and his breath was too uneven to be asleep, too.

“Tomorrow?”, Rashanur asked. Runner thought at how they would enlist to L’Rells mission then, and a pang of fear crept trough him.

“No, not really. I mean, yes, that too, but...”

“What is it?”

Runner breathed in deeply to gather enough courage. He feared to ask this question so much that it felt like hot burning in his insides, but he had to know it: “Do you still love me?” He was surprised that he had even actually managed to say it. But already in the next moment he regret it. He didn’t want to hear the answer to that.

“Of course I do.”, Rashanur sounded so hurt that he felt bad for having asked it, “didn’t we had an wonderful series evening yesterday? Didn’t I helped you with university organization stuff and we went into mensa together? Didn’t we just had amazing sex?”

Runner felt like an egoistical and foolish idiot, but now that this was out he also had to say the rest: “Yes, but… I know it is overemotional and clingy but… sometimes, it doesn’t feels like it. When we are at the university and you barely talk to me, never look at me and never touch me.”

“It isn’t.”, now Rashanurs voice was flat. Flat and desperate, “I just… I love you, I love you deeper than anybody else, I just… I cant let them see it.”

“But they wouldn’t even care.”, Runner tried, and was aware even then that is was pointless against years and years of societal influence, “As K’Felhyr has said, we are at the territory of House Mokai. House Mokai!”

“The house they said back in my old home that was run by bull dykes and feminized, unmanly nancies.”, Rashanur laughed, but stopped very fastly.

“Exactly. What I mean is, they are so open, celebrating even, about homosexual people and everybody else who might desire or love people of the same sex or maybe don’t fit into most peoples idea of genders that they are know even for other Houses for that. And even if you are not House Mokai, I’m from House D’Ghor and we are basically like ‘Fuck who you want as long as that person is honorable’.”

He heard Rashanurs smile in his little laugh. However it faded, too, very fast.

“I just can’t believe it. I wish I could. But… it doesn’t feels like it. Every time someone wispers to someone, or laughs behind my back, it feels as if they laugh about me, as if they know. Only two days before I had to leave a lecture because the people in the row behind me talking made me so uncomfortable.”, he breathed in deeply and Runner could feel how he tensed in his arms, “I mean, the brawls and group attacks and broken noses and bleeding bruises hurt too, but hey, I’m Klingon, we learn how to deal with physical pain since we’re kids, right?”, another one of these awful desperate, choking laughs, “But what they said about me as they found out… That stays with me the most. And I don’t want you to suffer through the same things, Runner. You don’t deserve it.”

His “But this wouldn’t happen here…” left stuck in his throat.

“I’m so sorry…”, he had said that so often when Rashanur had talked about his past and it never felt like enough no matter how often he said it.

“And the worst thing is, I feel as if they could see it. That… that I’m...”, his words almost drowned in his almost-sobbs.

“I know how this feels.”, scary, how bleak Runners own voice sounded.

“Because of your autism.”

“Every time I didn’t get something I should have done in another way socially, every time someone stares at me because of my running, or when I become too excited about things that interest me… I feel that they can see. I try so hard to hide it, always be in control… and yet, they with their scary insight in what others feel, almost like reading minds, how could I possibly hope to fool them?”

“But they cant possibly see that you are autistic, that is a far too complex… that is far too complex to see it without very complicated diagnose.”

Suddenly, Runner was desperate to feel the familiar sting in his chest. He felt his eyes starting to water with desperation and hopelessness and self-hate.

“Say it. You wanted to say that it is a disorder, an illness. That I am, who I am, is an illness that should be cured.”

“I’m so sorry. I am so, so sorry that they treated you so badly that you think like this.”, Rashanurs grip around his fingers became firmer, his voice was dripping with something… sad and desperate Runner couldn’t really identify.

“I… I used to think like this, before I meet you. I never knew anybody who is like you before, all the information I had was what the medical books told me… I still feel horrible for that.”, he shook his head. Runner almost had to cry from all the emotion in his voice, “I wish I would have know. That it isn’t a disorder, but just an different way of how a brain works. How very beautiful it can be.”

Now he really was crying, from hearing that this horrible disorder that marked him could be beautiful, that he could be more than a mistake. But he still had to say: “How can it be beautiful when it is a classified disorder? There is nothing beautiful about it.”

“Kori, you’re wonderful. How can you hate yourself so much? What did these people do to you?”

“How can _you_ hate yourself so much?”, he shot back. “And you know what they did to me.” He thought at the therapy, at the medical treatment that should make his brain at least a bit more functional, at how the other students had excluded and laughed about him. “It was necessary.”

“I don’t know much about psychology, but from what I learned what you experienced clearly sounds like trauma, and nothing should ever make trauma necessary…”, Rashanur tried.

“You didn’t see me!”, Runner hissed, and felt tears spill over his face. Despair, but even more hate so intense that he couldn’t possibly do anything with it, just be consumed by it, filled him. He saw the weird little boy he had once been so clearly in his mind. He wished he could travel back in time and smack his dumb little face against a wall. “You didn’t see me back then! I deserved it. I was such an annoying, insane, dumb kid, I was completely useless. Do you know what I did as my class went hunting for the first time? I got a crying fit and begged them to heal the targ they had hunted because I felt so sorry for it. It’s a wonder that I managed to became an halfly passable warrior of T’Kuvma at all, thinking at this.”

“I’m sorry…”, Rashanur squeezed his wrists tightly. It was soothing, but not enough, not nearly.

“And here I am, selfish as only people with this disability can be, and derailed something that was supposed to be about you…”

“You’re not selfish. You feel so deeply for everybody and everything, and you never took yourself before somebody else. You only break down sometimes, but of course you do when you never think at yourself.”

He wanted so desperately to believe that. Could it really be that he was okay the way he was? But that was against everything he had learned in all these years in training, in therapy, informing himself on the internet. And so he said: “How can I be not selfish when this is in every description of this disability? When my therapist, teachers, other students, even my parents (and they were always on my side) warned me to become too selfish?”

Rashanur stayed quiet. It seemed as if he didn’t knew what to say anymore. But then he said quietly, and so tenderly: “I love you just how you are.”

It felt so good, it hurt. It hurt so much. Hurt so good.

He couldn’t help but burst into tears again, and don’t stop. In front of every other person, even K’Felhyr or his mother, he would have felt humiliated, but he had gone trough to much along with Rashanur.

Rashanur turned and pulled him to his chest.

“Its okay, its all okay.”, he whispered and stroke his hair.

K’Felhyr was not the least surprised that Runner was already there. She just scuffed into the kitchen, eyes still half closed, and slurred: “I need caffeine.”

Three hours until the meeting with Chancellor L’Rell. One to eat, clean and clothe, one and a half to get there, and half an hour as a buffer.

Now nervousity was slowly bubbeling up in Runners chest, but as long as he didn’t pay attention to it, it was endurable.

“I hope you too didn’t spent too much time doing something else than sleeping? You will need that energy”, K’Felhyr said with an teasing grin.

Runner saw Rashanurs bared teeth to late, and so he answered: “Among other things…”

Rashanur glared at him, and Runner realized that again he had said too much.

“I hope you all have your armor cleaned?”, Rashanur changed the topic.

“Yeah. But damn, you can’t believe how hard it was to get my blood out of it…”, K’Felhyr bared her teeth in disgust. “Its something about the chemical structure, you know, it gets entangled with the molecules of the fabric.”

Runner looked to Rashanur. Even just remembering it hurt, but they had cut Rashanurs armor open from the chest to the hip, how in Kahless name would he possibly fix this?

Seeming to have the same thought, Rashanur meant with an shrug: “There was nothing to fix. Completely ripped apart, and my blood and part of my intestines everywhere.” Runner heard himself make an retching sound. K’Felhyrs eyes grew wide. Too much information. “I have to take my armor from my time with T’Kuvmas army.”

Runner wished he would have that possibility, he was sure he would feel better in the armor he had worn on board of the Ship of the Dead than the one he wore on the battlefield, but he had left it behind on his fast flight as Lord Kol took over. He would have to use the armor of House D’Ghor he had worn on the battlefield, and he already dreaded now how wearing it again, the sensations, would bring him back into this time. But there was no other way. He would have to endure, as always.

Rashanur helped him to braid small metal rings into his hair so that it would look more festive, then the three of them put their armor on, part after part. It reminded him uncomfortably much at getting dressed for battle back then. He tried to focus on the surroundings of K’Felhyrs and Rashanurs flat that were there instead of the military tents.

In full armor, they stood.

“Ready?”, K’Felhyr said.

Runner and Rashanur nodded. It almost felt like going on a mission again, but this time, Runner remembered himself, it would be a mission of science.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was planned much longer, but I lost momentum, so chapter 4 will be the last chapter. Sorry for that. 
> 
> As always, I love comments

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea for so long, and a bit lesser than a year ago I finally started to write it. However I stopped at some point because my attention shifted to other fandoms. However I still like this so much that I want to publish it. 
> 
> I had this idea because I was wondering how Klingons fare who do not fit into the warrior ideal, because they must exist, must they? Also I would have loved to see more of the war from Klingon perspective, so this is also something that influences this, if just as backstory
> 
> I think K'Felyhr is my favorite of the five, either her or Runner. There is so much of me in her. 
> 
> I publish a new chapter every Wednesday around 07 pm (19:00) Middle European standard time until I run out of chapters. I sadly only have four, but I really do like what I have so far, and who knows, maybe I continue when my obsession with Star Trek Discovery comes back


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